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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29604765">reach out and touch (don’t think of america)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephalopodsalad17/pseuds/Cephalopodsalad17'>Cephalopodsalad17</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Buckys from different timelines comforting each other, Comfort, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiverse, Past Rape/Non-con, Self-cest, Skin Hunger, Touch-Starved, one Bucky is post CATWS, past HYDRA Trash Party, second timeline is canon divergent after the train, the Snap in the second timeline displaced victims across the multiverse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:47:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,477</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29604765</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephalopodsalad17/pseuds/Cephalopodsalad17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They stared at their hands and then at each other. Bucky wondered if it felt the skin hunger the way he did. Maybe they could help each other. Maybe it would be too much. He didn’t know. There was no precedent for this. </p><p>Slowly, he extended his right hand again. So did the Asset.</p><p>Their fingers met, flinching back from the barest graze at first. Then, when nothing happened to discourage or punish them, they  clasped and gripped each other. </p><p>“We can touch,” Bucky marveled. They were touching and it was <em>easy</em>. </p><p><em>Forget breakfast</em>, he thought wildly. <em>I want to take you back to my bed and squeeze you like a body pillow.</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James “Bucky” Barnes/James “Bucky” Barnes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A shaft of light from Steve’s main room fell across Bucky’s closed eyes, and he blinked awake, resenting everything down to the soft pillow under his cheek.</p><p>“Hey, Buck?” Steve whispered from the door.</p><p>Bucky turned away from the light and pressed his head into his pillow.</p><p>“You haven’t left your bedroom in two days. Are you getting up today? I’m worried about you.”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” mumbled Bucky, relishing the word. “I’m working on my sleep deficit.” It was on the tip of his tongue to invite, or maybe beg, Steve to come join him instead, but they didn’t do that. The hunger for physical contact was only matched by the way his skin <em>crawled </em>at the idea of proximity to <em>anyone</em>. “You know they didn’t let me sleep at all between 2003 and 2014?”</p><p>Steve sighed audibly. Reflexively, Bucky tensed for pain. That disappointed noise meant he could expect punishment. Steve <em>wouldn’t</em>, but that didn’t mean a lot to Bucky’s body. Maybe his body wanted Steve to lay a hand on him for any reason at all, but it also didn’t want to be touched because touch meant pain. Fuck everything.</p><p>“I’ll bring you some breakfast,” said Steve. His voice was heavy with finality.</p><p>“Outside,” Bucky told him.</p><p>“Fine,” Steve agreed sourly. He closed the door.</p><p>Slowly, Bucky relaxed. It was still 2014, but he was safe in Avengers Tower with people who mostly didn’t think of him as a weapon. His brain was healing. He was working on his instinct to respond to threats with extreme violence. He didn’t have to obey anyone except Steve, and that was only on missions he wasn’t cleared to participate in yet. He wouldn’t be punished for staying in bed. Sleeping was allowed. It was even encouraged until he did too much of it at once. That apparently earned him Steve’s disappointed sigh.</p><p>But he could ignore it.</p><p>He could ignore all of it, skin hunger included.</p><p>***</p><p>The birds were singing. The Asset looked around itself and regulated its breathing. There was no point calling out for its Captain again. This was not where it had been. It remembered the powers of the individual Stones, and it tried not to tremble. This could be the Time Stone’s doing. Or Reality. Space seemed unlikely. The forest was nearly the same.</p><p>There were no voices. No sounds of battle. No scent penetrated its mask.</p><p>No enemies.</p><p>No allies.</p><p>No Avengers.</p><p>No Captains.</p><p>The Asset assessed its own condition. It had taken minor damage in the first clash with the aliens, but the bruises on its legs and shallow lacerations on its back were already healing. None of the damage prevented the Asset from assessing itself to be mission-ready.</p><p>Its mission had disappeared. No alien army to eliminate. No allies to assist and defend.</p><p>No Captains.</p><p>It was in a forest, probably in Wakanda, definitely alone. It <em>shouldn’t</em> be, but this was where it had found itself, and this was far from the first time this body had opened its eyes to a new reality. It should consider itself lucky to remember what had happened immediately before this.</p><p>
  <em>But I didn’t close them. I was looking at my Captain. And then I…</em>
</p><p>It had lost its grip on the gun, or maybe the gun had... lost its grip on the Asset’s hands. Either way, there was nothing near its feet. Even the surrounding ground was undisturbed. The Asset had not walked here. It stood where it had come to existence and that was all.</p><p>The Asset turned in a slow circle. The forest did not change. No mist lifted to return it to the battle.</p><p>It removed its mask and goggles, squinted at the sun, swiped the wetness from its eyes, determined the most likely direction, replaced its mask and goggles, and started to walk.</p><p>There was a hissing crackling noise behind it. The Asset used the motion of twisting around to take what cover the nearest tree provided. A sparking golden circle was expanding in the air a few feet from where the Asset had arrived.</p><p>***</p><p>An alarm woke Bucky from a relatively sound sleep. He was crouched beside his bed, gun in his right hand and his left in front of his head before it registered which alarm it was. On a better day maybe he would’ve straightened up, checked in with Steve, and then gone back to sleep. This was not shaping up to be a better day, so Bucky stayed where he was while his brain tried to make sense of his surroundings and the noise.</p><p>There were footsteps outside his door, followed by a knock. Adrenaline jolted through him again, and he hastily stashed the handgun back under his bed. He was perched on the edge of the bed when Steve stuck his head in the room.</p><p>“Hey,” he said, smiling far too brightly. “You’re up!”</p><p>Bucky rubbed at his face with his right hand. “The alarm,” he said.</p><p>Steve nodded. “Right. We’ve got a mission. I’ll let you know the estimated timetable if I can.”</p><p>There was an expectant silence.</p><p>Somehow, Bucky cobbled together the brain cells to say, “Okay.“</p><p>After several seconds of increasingly awkward silence, he added, “Be.… safe.“</p><p>“I will,“ Steve promised. “Don’t worry about me, Sam’s got my back. Might not even be any fighting this time. I left breakfast for you.“</p><p>“Thanks,” Bucky muttered down at his knees.</p><p>He waited for Steve to leave and his own adrenaline response to settle back into something closer to his usual stress levels before returning to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A strange hissing and crackling noise, almost like fire, brought Bucky out of a unrestful slumber. There were voices too. He suppressed the complaint on his tongue, now certain the sound had come from outside his disturbed and confusing dreams. Two voices spoke an unfamiliar language. It sounded like it was probably tonal, but it didn’t sound like Mandarin or Cantonese, which were the only tonal languages Bucky knew. Another speaker had a familiar voice Bucky couldn’t quite place and spoke too quietly for Bucky to understand.</p><p>Bucky considered staying where he was and ignoring the possible intruders or, worse, too-curious associates of the Avengers. Maybe he shouldn’t have insisted on limiting JARVIS here. Now he had to get up and make certain the rest of Steve’s floor was empty. “Shit. I thought I was done with the withdrawal hallucinations,” he mumbled, just to hear himself speak unprompted.</p><p>The voices stopped. The strange crackling noise stopped. Bucky could not convince his brain there was no one outside his door. After a few minutes, he decided that it was not worth the discomfort to ignore it any longer. He got up and made his way to the door. Steve’s big open-plan living/entertainment/dining/kitchen space would be empty. Bucky would go back to sleep.</p><p>The floor was not empty.</p><p>His second absurd thought, after assuming hallucination, was that he was being pranked with some kind of reflection or hologram, but the apparition standing before him wasn’t a mirror image or even an exact copy.</p><p>“What the <em>fuck</em>,“ he demanded.</p><p>The other Winter Soldier took a step back against a large potted fern, blue eyes very wide above the black mask and vivid against the eyeblack.</p><p>There was a strange soft squelch and Bucky and the other one looked down in unison to see a combat boot now squarely in the middle of a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. The other him looked back up, eyes even wider with panic, and Bucky felt a jolt of understanding.</p><p>“It’s okay,“ he said softly as he could. This was all in his head, so he was really only comforting himself, and it helped to say these things out loud, no matter how crazy he’d sound if anyone caught him at it. “It’s just eggs. No one’s hurt. No one‘s going to get hurt. Stay there. I’m going to get a towel to clean up. You’re not in trouble. I’m not in trouble. I might be hallucinating you, but we’re going to be okay.“</p><p>The other him nodded cautiously, slow and stiff. That was fair. Bucky found it difficult to believe those words himself, no matter how many times he repeated them.</p><p>There was a bath towel near the top of Bucky’s overflowing laundry basket. He grabbed it as quickly as he could, not wanting to take his eyes off the apparition any longer than he needed to.</p><p>“The sorcerers said I am a temporary timeline refugee,“ said Bucky’s hallucination. “I’m not a hallucination.“</p><p>Bucky gently tossed the towel so it landed against the edge of the plate. “That’s the sort of thing my withdrawal-induced hallucinations might say. Take your boots off on the towel.”</p><p>It complied. Of course it did. It was a hallucination, and in a few minutes, Bucky would find the plate of eggs undisturbed except by the towel. Good thing Steve was gone already.</p><p>Fuck. Maybe he should tip the food into the pot. Egg shells were good for potted plants. Maybe eggs were too. Maybe not the toast. There was salt in bread. Plants didn’t like salt, right? Shit. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now.</p><p>“How do you identify yourself?“ the hallucination asked, derailing his train of thought.</p><p>“I’m Bucky,“ he said. “You?”</p><p>“I’m the Asset,” said the Asset.</p><p>Bucky wasn’t very surprised, even if hearing it did make his heart race briefly. “Sure, but do you have a nickname or something?”</p><p>The mask came off, and his own face scowled at him. “I know I look like you. I’m not you. I’m not... Bucky.”</p><p>At least the name Bucky didn’t seem to be a surprise. Bucky spread his hands and watched as the Asset tracked the motion. “I never said you were. I’m just wondering if you have another form of address. What are your.... pronouns?”</p><p>It wasn’t hard to read the Asset’s expression, but Bucky persisted. “Uh… What personal pronouns do you use for yourself in English?”</p><p>The Asset was giving him a look right back. Bucky wondered if he was as transparent.</p><p>After a long silence during which Bucky could practically see all the wheels turning, the Asset decided how to respond.</p><p>“Not <em>he</em>,” said the Asset. Then, a little too quickly, not-he added, “They called me Subject sometimes. When I wasn’t on missions and the scientists were using me.” There was more, but the Asset clearly didn’t want to say.</p><p>With a grimace, Bucky said, “I remember that. When they were having fun, they called me Toy.”</p><p>He was pretty confident the Asset had a particular pronoun in mind but feared a bad reaction. He didn’t think the Asset was fresh away from HYDRA, and not-he didn’t want to be called or identified as any part of Bucky Barnes.</p><p>“Who calls you Asset?“ he asked.</p><p>The Asset looked confused. “My superiors.”</p><p>“Who are…?”</p><p>The Asset’s expression went the wariest it had been. “Who are yours?” was the question.</p><p>That, at least, was easy. “I don’t officially have any,” he said. “The Avengers are responsible for me, but that doesn’t make them my superiors.” That was what they said. Steve promised it was true. Steve might become his CO again, but only if Bucky was ever cleared for missions with the Avengers.</p><p>“Oh,” said the Asset in a very small voice. “How are you a Bucky?”</p><p>“Steve recognized me,” said Bucky. That was the start of his path back to using the name anyway. This entire conversation was <em>insane</em>, but Bucky was hungry for it the same way he was for touch.</p><p>The Asset clearly wanted to curl up in misery. “Steve recognizes me sometimes. It usually makes things worse.”</p><p>“Well, shit,” said Bucky, baffled and helpless. Then, with a creeping dread that maybe the hallucinatory Asset <em>was</em> still with HYDRA, he asked, “Who <em>are </em>your superiors?”</p><p>“Colonel Rhodes is officially my immediate superior, but he told me to follow Captain America’s orders. The Accords committee seconded me to the Avengers as part of the Earth Defense Alliance.”</p><p>The only parts Bucky understood were Captain America and the Avengers. ”How did you get here?“ he asked.</p><p>The Asset looked away. “We were fighting an alien army. I think we lost. The enemy commander wanted to remove half the living being in our universe. The sorcerer who retrieved me said he must’ve done that by scattering us across the multiverse. If the Avengers find a way to reverse it, it will take five years for them in most timelines.”</p><p>“So you’ll be stuck here for five years or forever?“ Bucky could barely process most of the Asset’s story. Every part of it was terrifying.</p><p>“In my native timeline. Here the time would be closer to five months.”</p><p>“Why five months?“</p><p>“Something to do with the relative speed of timelines the more divergent they become.”</p><p>Yeah, Bucky could see that something was very different in their timelines.</p><p>“Why isn’t the AI sounding an alarm?“</p><p>Bucky knew he should have waited, should’ve hesitated, before answering that sort of question, but it didn’t occur to him. It wasn’t like there was an actual intruder. “Disabling the monitoring on this floor was one of my conditions for coming to the tower.“</p><p>Familiar blue eyes scanned the joinings of the walls before fastening on Bucky’s face with an intensity that felt desperate, no matter how little of anything showed on the Asset’s face.</p><p>“Then… no one knows what happens on this floor? No one is watching?” the Asset frowned like the idea was nearly too much to try to believe.</p><p>“Yeah,“ Bucky confirmed. “I didn’t believe it at first either, but it’s true. We made it a condition of my living here.“</p><p>“We?“</p><p>“Steve did most of the arguing for me. Self-advocacy is difficult.“</p><p>The Asset nodded solemnly. “It is.”</p><p>After a moment’s silent contemplation, Bucky admitted, “Pretty sure I know what pronoun you’re used to. Will it bother you if I use it in my head?“</p><p>No eye contact. “Оно. Да. It was always bad to be called anything else.“</p><p>Bucky looked again at the ruined plate of eggs and toast. Not that long ago he wouldn’t have cared. He would’ve got down on his hands and knees to eat them off the floor. He’d been a thing too. That wasn’t the expectation anymore. It would make Steve sad if he knew the thought had even crossed Bucky’s mind. He should find something else to eat. Should he feed the Asset too? On the off-chance this wasn’t some left-over chemical fuckery or misfiring neurons in his brain, it probably wouldn’t hurt to offer.</p><p>“Have you eaten today?” he asked. That was what Steve and the others with access to the floor asked him. It was still hard to identify the normal kind of hunger sometimes. Actually, a lot of the time.</p><p>The Asset shook its head.</p><p>“There should be cereal and fruit in the kitchen,” he said.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Asset drank, or maybe appeared to drink, most of a half-gallon carton of almond milk while Bucky gathered some other options. Bucky hated the varied textures of granola, but the square oat-based cereal with the hole in the middle was easy to eat dry by the handful. There was a plastic carton of mixed raspberries and blackberries. All he had to do was rinse them. </p>
<p>It was inexplicably easier to do all of this for someone else. A probably-hallucinatory version of himself who seemed even more overwhelmed and uncertain than Bucky? He shouldn’t be surprised his brain had come up with something like this, even if the backstory was strange and confusing.</p>
<p>It reached into the bowl of berries he was filling.</p>
<p>The knuckles of its right hand brushed his. Bucky froze at the touch.</p>
<p>Of.</p>
<p>Its unexpectedly tangible hand.</p>
<p>This… might not be all in his head after all. Well, he’d been trying not to question his hallucinations extending to the food. Maybe he’d touched one of the berries he had imagined the Asset had eaten and spooked himself?</p>
<p>Honestly, he didn’t think so. The evidence was stacking up.</p>
<p>“Oh,” said the Asset, in a small surprised breath. “We can <em>touch.</em> There’s no…” It trailed off abruptly and looked warily and hopefully at Bucky.</p>
<p>His fingers were tingling where the Asset’s knuckles had grazed them. This was real. He put down the empty colander. Real.</p>
<p>They stared at their hands and then at each other. Bucky wondered if it felt the skin hunger the way he did. Maybe they could help each other. Maybe it would be too much. He didn’t know. There was no precedent for this.</p>
<p>Slowly, he extended his right hand again. So did the Asset.</p>
<p>Their fingers met, flinching back from the barest graze at first, then, when nothing happened to discourage or punish them for it, clasped and gripped each other.</p>
<p>“We can touch,” Bucky marveled. The Asset was real, they were touching and it was <em>easy</em>.</p>
<p><em>Forget breakfast</em>, he thought wildly. <em>I want to take you back to my bed and squeeze you like a body pillow.</em></p>
<p>Across the table, the Asset swallowed visibly. “Okay,” it said. “Can we take the berries with us?”</p>
<p>Bucky stared at it.</p>
<p>“I,” it said, biting its lower lip in a very familiar motion, “I feel like my skin is about to leap across the table and wrap you up. You look like I feel. We should find a place to… sit down. But it’s been a long time since I had fresh fruit that wasn’t oranges or apples.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” said Bucky, wrong-footed by the Asset’s bravery for reasons he didn’t want to examine. “Yeah, we…” He could <em>feel </em>his brain switching over to logistics. Too much emotion. He let go of the Asset’s warm hand and stepped back. “We need to eat and clean up, first,” he blurted.</p>
<p>Neither of them had to sit down on the couch in order to recognize that it was too open. There was no need to say so aloud. Bucky grabbed a large bag of roasted salted macadamia nuts out of the pantry while the Asset held onto the bowl of mixed berries. They should have something else.</p>
<p>“Here.”</p>
<p>He opened the refrigerator and passed two large bottles of premade fruit and vegetable smoothies to the Asset.</p>
<p>It eyed the labels with something between reluctance and avarice, but said nothing.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>They retreated to Bucky’s room, and then straight to the bed to put down their food and drinks. Bucky’s bedroom had an attached bathroom. As far as he knew, all the bedrooms in the tower had their own bathrooms. More importantly, Stark had gone all-out and put in separate bath and shower stalls. This was just as well because the Asset nearly hyperventilated at the sight of the bath.</p>
<p>Bucky couldn’t endure showers. He didn’t want to know why that was different.</p>
<p>They scrubbed down and rinsed off quickly, the Asset in the shower and Bucky in the bathtub. From the steam, it was obvious that one thing they shared was an appreciation for water nearly hot enough to scald.</p>
<p>Once the eyeblack, blood, and grime were washed off the Asset, they were nearly, but not quite, identical.</p>
<p>They toweled dry more slowly than they’d washed. They watched each other without shame or hesitance, eyes roaming over naked flesh and metal. Some of their scars were different and the Asset’s body looked harder, like the grueling demands made on it were written in its muscles, while Bucky knew his own rangy leanness was more due to not eating enough. Neither of them had what Bucky had been told was a healthy amount of body fat.</p>
<p>He saw it notice and suppress a reaction to the now-faint scars on Bucky’s ass and inner thighs. They would have disappeared in cryo like all the earlier ones, but they’d been made fresh before Insight Day. Bucky didn’t know how to feel about them. They had been useful evidence of Bucky’s torture, but he hated the story they told to anyone who saw them.</p>
<p>Dropping its eyes, the Asset swallowed. It’s right hand went to a line of pale scar tissue, half an inch at the widest, at the jut of its hip. When it turned half-away, he saw there was a matching mark on the other hip, one at the base of the back of its neck, and similar marks on the backs of its ankles. Some sort of restraint, maybe?</p>
<p>The soft cock between the Asset’s legs looked the same as his, lacking any visible sign of what might have been done to it in the past. Bucky realized he was staring and jerked his eyes away, up the Asset’s back, to the scarring around its shoulder. Was that what his looked like from the back? It was a view he’d never had before.</p>
<p>The hand dropped, and the Asset turned back and met his eyes. “Clothes?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he said. “Whatever we want.”</p>
<p>It didn’t feel weird to be sharing his boxers. It just felt weird to not feel weird about sharing his boxers.</p>
<p>“No briefs or boxer briefs?” the Asset questioned, looking at the selection.</p>
<p>“Steve might have some,” Bucky offered. Steve wouldn’t mind Bucky borrowing his underwear. He might have questions, or he might just bring Bucky a whole package of them without saying a word, but he wouldn’t be upset.</p>
<p>The Asset inhaled softly. “Boxers are fine.” It selected a pair in a heathered light gray, the most common color in the drawer.</p>
<p>Bucky grabbed a black pair with a blue waistband and trim, dropped his towel, and pulled them up quickly. He didn’t look at the Asset as it did the same. “Pants? Shirt?”</p>
<p>“Only if you want them,” it said. “I want skin contact.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” said Bucky. He hadn’t forgotten what the point of this was. “Skin contact.”</p>
<p>He walked over to stand by his bed, still rumpled from when he’d gotten out of it to discover the Asset.</p>
<p>“Here,” he said, offering the Asset the bag of nuts he’d brought from the kitchen. “It’s some sort of rich people nut, but they’re good. Kind of sweet.”</p>
<p>“This is safe?“ The Asset questioned, following him over. It looked between Bucky and the bed and took a handful of macadamia nuts.</p>
<p>“They haven’t hurt me yet,” Bucky said, also looking between the bed and the Asset. “They’ve had reason and opportunity.“</p>
<p>“Is the bed soft?“</p>
<p>“I can sleep on it,“ Bucky said. “It’s adjustable. We can change it.“</p>
<p>“I haven’t slept in a bed with sheets and pillows since the early ‘80s,“ it said.</p>
<p>“I haven’t slept in a bed with sheets and pillows I could feel mostly safe in since the ‘90s,” Bucky said.</p>
<p>He didn't meet its eyes as it shot him an assessing, surprised glance. He could read the questions off of that face. Did they give you privileges for good behavior? Did they rape you? Did they hurt you for sleeping in a bed like a person? What was different?</p>
<p>If one of the Avengers had looked at him with those questions, he couldn’t have stood it. Did it not bother him because he knew the Asset could read his own wondering the same way?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Is this under-negotiated snuggling?</p><p>HTP pasts are discussed. More warnings in the end notes.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No time like the present, then,“ it said. It hesitated, looking pensive. “Is this the present? If time runs differently here, maybe I don’t know what year it is. It was 2018 when I last slept.”</p><p>“Well, fuck,” said Bucky. “It’s 2014. I don’t suppose you know who’s won the World Series since 2014. Does your universe have baseball?”</p><p>“What’s baseball?” asked the Asset, blank-faced.</p><p>For a long moment, Bucky eyed it suspiciously. “You’re fucking with me.”</p><p>“Yes,” it agreed, “but I don’t know anything about the World Series.”</p><p>“Me neither,” Bucky confessed. “Steve talks about it, but I don’t know why he thinks it’s important. I don’t think it’s even international.”</p><p>“You’re very calm,” the Asset commented.</p><p>“So are you,” said Bucky. “Winter Soldiers have to run with the punches.“</p><p>“Roll.“</p><p>“Is it? Right. I’m not convinced I’m awake yet. Maybe my mind is playing tricks while I fall from the train.“</p><p>“I’m not a hallucination. But the Bucky who fell from that train didn’t deserve to become me, so it might be better if I was.“</p><p>Bucky sighed deeply. “Can’t argue that. You want the wall side or the door side?”</p><p>“Wall,” said the Asset. “If those are our choices. But I want your weight on me.”</p><p>Surprised, Bucky shuddered. He’d offered the sides of the bed specifically so neither of them would have to lie on top of the other. Their experiences must have been substantially different.</p><p>“I need to stay on top, then,” he said, staring at the mussed sheets.</p><p>It nodded.</p><p>They stared at the bed.</p><p>“Maybe we should sit first,” said the Asset.</p><p>“How about you lie down first, and I’ll get on top of you,” suggested Bucky at the same time.</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” said the Asset, emphatically, which made Bucky feel better about his suggestion. It stuffed the rest of the nuts in its hand into its mouth and cautiously clambered onto Bucky’s bed. “Face up or down?”</p><p>“Either,” said Bucky. His heart was racing.</p><p>After a moment’s deliberation, the Asset lay face down.</p><p>Almost like he was watching from somewhere else, Bucky’s body climbed over it and lay down on top of it. His arms fit under its arms, his legs outside of its legs, his chest against its back, and his dick came to nestle against the underside of the swell of its ass, separated from its warm vulnerable body by only two thin layers of soft fabric.</p><p>“I can’t,” Bucky wheezed and rolled off the bed. “Too much.” </p><p>This was awful. He wanted the contact so much his skin and chest hurt with it. His <em>goddamn</em> <em>hair</em> was aching for it. The Asset wanted it too. He’d been so sure he could follow through. </p><p>He just couldn’t. That short moment left him sick-scared, like he was on a mission about to take a knife to a sleeping target. </p><p>The Asset’s disappointed sigh did not make Bucky anticipate punishment. He just felt like a heel as it rolled to the side, back to the wall.</p><p>The questions were plain and loud on its face, but there was no apparent judgement as it stared at him.</p><p>Bucky wrapped his arms around himself and struggled with the urge to fold up and retreat under the bed or into the closet. The heavy <em>thud-thud</em> in his chest, painful tightness in his throat, and phantom sensation of hands on his genitals were familiar symptoms. “Rolling with it might be a little more complicated than I was hoping,” he forced out.</p><p>“Your keepers raped you,” it said, less than half question and more than half certainty.</p><p>“Yeah.” There was a strange relief in confirming it out loud. When Steve’s team had recovered them from the riverbank and transported them to the hospital, everyone present had known as soon as they got his tac pants off. The evidence had been undeniable. He hadn’t had to say it. No one had tried to make him talk about it yet. The closest he’d gotten had been nodding when a nurse at the hospital had said they wanted to remove the plug and collect a sample from inside him. At the time, he’d been acknowledging an implied order he would comply with. He hadn’t known he could refuse that any more than he could refuse treatment for his dislocated right arm or other injuries. “Yeah,” he repeated. “HYDRA…” He shook his head. That was more than he’d said aloud before, and no more really needed saying.</p><p>The Asset nodded. “I don’t know if what they did to me was rape. They called it a medical procedure. They said they had to milk me. Captain America was very upset about it, but he called it sexual abuse.”</p><p>No surprise Captain America had been upset. “Like a cow?” Bucky asked. He wasn’t sure why he was trying to picture it.</p><p>“More like a bull,” it said, “with restraints and something like a stun baton, but for touching and shocking the prostate inside, not hitting.”</p><p>Bucky wished he hadn’t asked for the elaboration. He curled his bare toes into the thick soft carpet and tried to focus on that instead.</p><p>“Bucky?” prompted the Asset.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Let’s put on pants and eat something,” it suggested.</p><p>“Okay. We can do that.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Spoilers!</p><p>Bucky tries to lie down over the Asset’s back and immediately has to get off the bed again due to flashback/anxiety.</p><p>Bucky’s trash past includes having been raped by multiple HYDRA agents immediately before the helicarriers. At a hospital, medical staff removed a plug and did a rape kit. Bucky had no control over who found out and thought he had to comply.</p><p>The Asset’s past includes being routinely restrained and milked for semen via electrical stimulation. The Asset isn’t clear on understanding that this counted as rape because HYDRA’s doctors said it was a medical procedure.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to rub elbows, and worked through nearly the half the food and drinks before they lay down again. The Asset pressed itself back against the wall. When it raised its left arm in invitation, Bucky lay down with his back to it, lower body angled away. The backs of his shoulders pressed into its warm upper chest, and he sighed and relaxed as much as he could.</p><p>Having the Asset at his back wasn’t uncomfortable. He could be the little spoon if they stayed like this. Probably.</p><p>“Can you make the bed firmer?” the Asset mumbled into his hair.</p><p>“Control panel’s on your side of the bed. It’s a little metal square with a textured metal rectangular switch on the wall just below the height of the bed, about where our shoulders are. There are some other buttons on the panel, but you can ignore them. Press the switch down and hold. The bed makes a kind of growling noise,” he explained. “Stark says it’s soundless, but Steve and I both hear it.”</p><p>The Asset propped itself up enough to reach back and find the control panel. The bed made a quiet sound like a grumpy mechanical animal, and Bucky could feel the mattress press against his muscles. It was nice, but he was trying to acclimatize to softer things.</p><p>“Okay if I put my left arm over you like this?” the Asset asked as it resettled.</p><p>“Yeah,” said Bucky. “Just keep your hand loose.”</p><p>It did.</p><p>They lay there together, and listened and <em>felt </em>in silence.</p><p>“Thanks,“ they said in unison and then broke down into sounds too harsh to be giggles.</p><p>***</p><p>Everything Bucky said or did confirmed that the Asset was right in its choice not to try to be Bucky Barnes. </p><p>For one thing, it would have been confusing if they had both introduced themselves as Bucky. For another, the Asset hadn’t been a good person for at least 73 years. It didn’t know how it was possible.</p><p>Bucky was nice. The Asset had forgotten what it felt like to be almost comfortable. It hadn’t experienced <em> nice </em> in a long time. It hadn’t laughed. It was barely able to cry. That it was doing both now felt miraculous. They had even <em> talked </em> together, and not about a mission. This hadn’t been what it expected to happen today. </p><p>Bucky wasn’t the only one having trouble believing.</p><p>If this was a product of the Reality Stone being used to keep the Asset from fighting, it didn’t care as much as it probably should. If it was dying, this was a glimpse of a nicer afterlife than it had ever imagined.</p><p>It hadn’t known what to expect when the sorcerers told it that it would be sent to Avengers Tower where it would be kept safe and out of the wrong hands if it kept its head down. The Asset was used to keeping its head down. It didn’t want to be in <em> anyone’s </em>hands, even the right hands, but it was used to going where it was told. It didn’t know how it would be made to comply without its Captain, but that probably meant it would be better off complying from the start and not finding out. Being out of custody meant the punishment after recapture would be worse. Maybe the Avengers here would really keep it safe. They wouldn’t have to want to keep it around to understand that sending it away could endanger this timeline. </p><p>It felt like the worst sort of traitor to even think about it, but maybe this version of Iron Man would be more accepting of its solo presence. Maybe this Captain America would see something more than risk in its brokenness. </p><p>It had expected drawn weapons, harsh questions, and rough hands. It had tentatively looked forward to being alone in a warm dry well-lit cell again. It thought it could probably count on the Avengers for at least that much.</p><p>It hadn’t expected Bucky Barnes. It hadn’t thought about its own counterpart in this universe at all. It wasn’t like anyone with a lick of sense would let two Winter Soldiers interact, and Bucky Barnes would be dead if he wasn’t the Winter Soldier.</p><p>This Bucky was warm and nice and felt inexplicably safe. It hadn’t escaped its notice that Bucky didn’t like calling it the Asset. Strangely, that only made it feel more comfortable with him. </p><p>From the happy sigh as it nestled its chin into the hair spread over the pillow, Bucky wanted it here. The Asset had never thought somebody called Bucky could ever want any part of it. </p><p>It felt so good to be close to him, sharing a bed and body heat. The Asset might even fall asleep like this. It was like… like coming out of cryo to warm blankets and soup instead of wet clothing and the Chair. It was like lying in the sun and not worrying about the risk of sunburn.</p><p>He didn’t feel like a stranger, a threat, or even like another person. However long this lasted, real or not, the Asset was going to hold on with both hands. </p><p>A sound caught its attention and it amended its last thought. The Asset was going to hold on with both hands <em>as</em> <em>long as it was allowed</em>. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Shit. Shit. Shit.</em>
</p><p>Steve was back.</p><p>“Bucky?” Steve called through the door. “You okay?”</p><p>He must have seen the breakfast he’d made left uneaten in the kitchen trash.</p><p>The Asset was rigid against Bucky’s back.</p><p>Bucky was glad he’d thought to lock the door. It wouldn't stop Steve from coming in if he thought he had to, but it was a clear signal that Bucky didn’t want him to barge in. It had been almost two weeks since Bucky had last locked Steve out without warning him. Steve probably thought he was regressing. He <em>felt</em> a little like he was regressing.</p><p>Shit.</p><p>Steve had been unbelievably understanding so far, but not alerting anyone to the presence of a second Winter Soldier of unverified provenance was probably beyond what Captain America could let slide. He were going to be in so much trouble. <em>Steve</em> might even be in trouble. </p><p>If Steve was in trouble, then Bucky was definitely in trouble.</p><p>Bucky had taken the “magically deposited here by sorcerers” part of the Asset’s story at face-value because he’d been sure he was hallucinating. Then he’d been thoroughly distracted by the Asset’s very real physical presence. There was no way to explain any of that without Steve, and probably the rest of the Avengers, getting <em>really</em> concerned about him again.</p><p>He didn’t know what they’d do with the Asset. He wanted to believe that Steve would protect any version of Bucky, but the Asset said it <em>wasn’t </em>Bucky. Bucky had said that too at first, but he’d hardly known blue from red at the time, so Steve had known better. The Asset seemed to have the facts of its past and still called itself the Asset.</p><p>What did it mean that Steve recognizing the Asset made it worse? </p><p>Bucky was afraid to know.</p><p>The Asset’s breathing was fast and shallow, nearly soundless. Slowly, Bucky rolled to his back and looked it over. Its already unhealthy pallor was even more pronounced. Its eyes were squeezed shut.</p><p>It looked, in a word, petrified.</p><p>Bucky thanked his lucky stars he’d taken the towel with the Asset’s boots into his bathroom when they were cleaning up. The only evidence out there was evidence of Bucky raiding the kitchen.</p><p>He had to stop Steve from coming in.</p><p>Until ten minutes ago, the closest he’d managed to physical contact had been the lifesize Captain America body pillow which sometimes made an appearance on bad days, so maybe he could hide the Asset in its place since the pillow was currently under his bed, conveniently out of sight. No, that was absurd. If Steve came in, the jig would be up.</p><p>“No,” he croaked out, mouth dry. He practiced it a lot, but he’d barely learned to say no, and it was still an effort now. His nerves buzzed with anxiety at the thought of lying, but he would try if he had to. “Sorry,” he blurted. “Mess.”</p><p>Since Steve had brought him here, Bucky hadn’t deliberately kept a secret from him. Steve wasn’t his handler or really his superior, but sometimes he did feel like Bucky’s keeper. Bucky fought the urge to get up and go confess his transgressions immediately. He didn’t dare. He wasn't sure what they were doing, or going to do, but it felt vital that they be left alone to do it. He couldn't take the risk.</p><p>It wouldn’t even open its eyes to give him a pleading look. He knew exactly what that was like. It wasn’t okay for either of them to feel like that again. </p><p>“I don’t care about any mess. You’re more important to me than a plate of eggs and toast,” Steve sighed. “Didja at least eat <em>something</em>?”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Bucky, mostly in the direction of his pillow.</p><p>“Buck, are you sure you don’t want some company in there? I don’t mind.“</p><p>“Just me,“ said Bucky. His heart was pounding. “N-no, Steve.”</p><p>Fuck. Steve would have heard that stumble. Now he’d be <em>convinced</em> Bucky was having a bad day.</p><p>Steve sounded so defeated. “Of course, Buck. Whatever you need, pal.”</p><p>Pressed skin to skin, Bucky felt when the Asset’s heart skipped a beat.</p><p>“How long?” Bucky asked. He had to get Steve back on his mission and away from anything happening here.</p><p>“Uh, I left for the briefing about an hour and a half ago. There’ve been some developments. It might be a few days. Maybe a week, but Tony and Bruce need to build some sort of equipment or tech or something before we can go, so I’ve got maybe another forty-five minutes before we’ll head out.”</p><p>Bucky said nothing, and Steve rambled on. He’d answered how long he’d been gone, how long the mission might take, and how long he had before he had to leave. He couldn’t share any other details, like where he was going or how much danger he would be in this time. </p><p>“Look,” Steve tried, “I won’t come in, but if it would help for me to be out here, or, or even up on the team floors...”</p><p>The Asset’s head turned sharply. The arm over Bucky’s shoulder twitched in an aborted clutching impulse.</p><p>”Your mission,” said Bucky, startled. “You have to go, Steve.”</p><p>”There’s nothing calling me out but my own sense of duty these days, Buck. This’ll probably be science stuff instead of punching. I can...”</p><p>”Make me your goddamn albatross? <em>No</em>, Steven.”</p><p><em>That</em> <em>fucking sigh </em>was followed by a dull thud which probably meant the dramatic asshole was dropping his head against Bucky’s door. </p><p>“Are you-“</p><p>”Right now <em>I need</em> you to leave for your mission,” Bucky said, as clearly as he had practiced any “I need” statements during mandated therapy. He’d be proud if he didn’t feel so sick. </p><p>After a terrifying silence, Steve said, “Okay, Buck.”</p><p>The Winter Soldiers barely breathed again until Steve left the floor. </p><p>Bucky’s mouth opened and closed as he sat up and turned fully toward the Asset.</p><p>“Hug?” he whispered.</p><p>It nodded its wet face.</p><p>The hug was scary and uncoordinated and maybe caused some temporary bruising, but it was worth it to have another body in his arms holding on to him while they hyperventilated into each other’s skin. </p><p>“H-how could he <em>say</em> that?” the Asset gasped. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bucky swallowed and dropped his chin over the Asset’s right shoulder. Its hair was still a little damp from its shower. It smelled like him, under the lingering traces of leather, blood, and something he suspected was from the aliens it had been fighting that morning back, or maybe forward, in 2018. </p><p>There were a lot of ways this conversation could, and probably would, hurt. </p><p>He couldn’t pretend to not understand what it was asking.</p><p>“It’s not the first time he’s said I’m more important than… something,” Bucky confessed. “Like the breakfast he made me. Training equipment I broke. Team dinners. Running with Sam.” It was terrifying how freely Steve admitted to it. Bucky tried to believe him, but it was hard when he didn’t want it to be true for Steve’s sake.</p><p>The Asset pulled back to study him through a curtain of disheveled hair. It licked its lips in a tell Bucky suddenly knew he’d had trained out of him in the eighties. “Missions are different,” it said.</p><p>“I know,” said Bucky. </p><p>“Does… Does your Steve know that?” The question was halting and careful. </p><p>“He’s a stubborn idiot. He wants to think people will be on his side just because he’s right.”</p><p>“Yeah,” said the Asset, in a distant tone Bucky knew too well. “I know.”</p><p>They sat there, close, but no longer touching. </p><p>Eventually, the Asset came back into itself. “It wouldn’t be allowed, of course. The army would take him back if he wasn’t more useful here with the Avengers.”</p><p>The <em> army? </em></p><p>“Asset,” Bucky said, slowly. “What happened to you and your Steve?”</p><p>“He’s not my Steve,” it said, simple and devastating. “He’s my Captain. But he’s HYDRA’s.”</p><p>Bucky closed his eyes and focused on breathing in and out, counting as he’d been taught. It was the worst case scenario. He had, at some level, guessed this was coming. Anticipating it didn’t help.</p><p>But he didn’t understand how the army fit into the picture.</p><p>“I think we should compare some of our history,“ he said. He felt cold and brittle. He didn’t want to shatter any more. Winter Soldiers rolled with the punches, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.</p><p>“Yes,” said the Asset, “but I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to hear this.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No one believed me when I said he was brainwashed,” said the Asset. It watched Bucky’s expression carefully, barely daring to hope.</p><p>“I believe you,” Bucky promised, and opened his eyes.</p><p>The Asset nodded. Bucky’s set expression told it that he meant what he said. “I believe you,” it echoed and watched the way Bucky slumped back slightly.</p><p>“We should start at the beginning,” said Bucky. “I was born in 1917.”</p><p>The Asset nodded.</p><p>“In Indiana.”</p><p>The Asset nodded again.</p><p>“To…” Bucky grimaced.</p><p>“To George and Winifred Barnes,” the Asset filled in. “Their firstborn and only son. Followed by three sisters.”</p><p>It was Bucky’s turn to nod. The Asset imagined it would be more difficult to say their names if it considered itself to be that son and brother.</p><p>Bucky picked up the story. “We moved to Brooklyn sometime after… after Rebecca was born,” he said. “Steve says I met him when I tried to rescue him from bullies. I don’t remember it, but he-”</p><p>“I do,” interrupted the Asset. “Got a punch in the face for stepping in. He said he had them on the ropes.”</p><p>Bucky’s forehead creased in concentration. “Did he say that a lot? I’ve heard that before.”</p><p>It exhaled through its nose in a sigh. “<em>I had them on the ropes</em> and <em>I can do this all day</em> were his personal slogans. Usually not factual statements.”</p><p>“I’ve seen what he looked like before,” said Bucky, “and he did give me that impression.”</p><p>Just how much did Bucky remember if he didn’t remember Steve before the first round of mad scientists got at him? Less than the Asset. It wasn’t fair. So many times since the last wipe, the Asset had wished away its memories of the kid from Brooklyn. This Bucky, who claimed the name of the boy who had known Steve Rogers then and lived with a Steve Rogers now who seemed bent on protecting him, should have had those memories.</p><p>It was pointless to want things to be fair. It knew that. It tried not to be angry. There was a deep well of rage and despair waiting to be the fuel of a violent and final fire that would char it and the world to ash. There were reasons not to give in, even when it was difficult to think of them.</p><p>Enough.</p><p>“Drafted,” it said, “in ‘42. Steve had been trying to enlist since Pearl Harbor.” It doesn’t add any details this time. He’d told Steve they would enlist together, but his number had come up and that was it. Steve hadn’t spoken to him for two days after he’d lied about enlisting. He’d been mad as hell that they wouldn’t take him to die for his country. Better if… No.</p><p>Bucky spoke next. “I was on leave, about to deploy to Europe as a Sergeant. We went to see Stark’s flying car. Steve saw a recruiter.”</p><p>“Erskine and Stark turned him into Captain America,” said the Asset, wanting it over with. “Azzano. Zola’s laboratory in the factory in Kreischberg.” The beginnings of the Winter Soldier. Steve should have left him there and stayed with the USO.</p><p>“Steve went AWOL to rescue me,” said Bucky.</p><p>The Asset said, “Yes.” Then, it added, “A temporary reprieve.”</p><p>“I remember more of the war,” Bucky explained. “Some things about the Commandos. Carter. A handful of missions. Not a lot. I don’t remember a lot of anything.”</p><p>The Asset looked at him.</p><p>Bucky’s eyes flickered away, caught. “I don’t remember a lot of anything good.”</p><p>“It’s 2014,” said the Asset. “I would be surprised if you did.”</p><p>After a moment of silent contemplation, Bucky squared his shoulders. “Alright. We both know what’s coming. I’ll go first.”</p><p>Did it want to know what had gone right for this universe? Maybe. Want was rarely a factor in the Asset’s decisions. It needed this information. That was close enough.</p><p>“There was a mission. We ziplined onto a train to capture Zola. I fell. Russians found me. My arm was mostly gone. I remember being dragged through the snow, watching the trail of red it left. It was so cold I couldn’t feel the damage.” The emotion drained from Bucky’s voice as he told the story. His tone was distant and matter-of-fact. “Steve thought I was dead. Zola gave up Schmidt‘s base. There was a plane full of bombs. Steve crashed it into the ocean by Greenland. He was frozen for-”</p><p>“No,” said the Asset.</p><p>Bucky stopped. He waited. He must have guessed.</p><p>It made itself say it. “Steve went AWOL to search for the body. He never returned. Carter put the Valkyrie into the ice. The next time I saw Steve was in a laboratory in Russia.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Oh,” said Bucky, as if it had been wrenched out of him. “I thought… I thought maybe the train. I should have known he’d finish the mission first.”</p><p>“They said he defected willingly,” whispered the Asset. “All the records from that time are destroyed or look like they refer to me. Steve says he wanted to go to HYDRA all along. He says he’d been planning it since the serum transformed him.” It clenched its fists in the fabric of its pants. They didn’t provide enough resistance. “It’s <em>bullshit</em>, Bucky.”</p><p>“Of course it is,” Bucky agreed. “Steve would never want to join HYDRA. It doesn’t make sense.”</p><p>“I’m the only one who remembers what they did to make him believe that, and I didn’t remember soon enough,” it tried to explain.</p><p>The words came tumbling out. It wasn’t something it talked about, not that it was used to talking much. No one wanted to hear it making excuses for its Captain. The only evidence worked against what it knew to be true. It wasn’t even Bucky Barnes, so what did it think it was doing making declarations about Steve Rogers? “They figured out early that what they did would wear off if we had time to heal. Most of the time we were both blank slates to start. Mostly compliant. But. You know Steve. He’s always needed a <em>cause.</em>”</p><p>“So they made his cause HYDRA. And of course yours was Steve. How?” rasped Bucky. He reached out with his right hand before starting to lower it, and the Asset grabbed it in its own. It was much better to clutch at him than its pant leg.</p><p>“Who gave Steve his moral compass?”</p><p>“His mother,” Bucky said without hesitation. “Sarah Rogers. Oh, God. <em>What</em>?”</p><p>“They made him think she’d been HYDRA. Instead of helping those in need and standing up for what’s right, he remembers things she never said about sacrificing some for many to bring about peace, security in HYDRA’s new world order. His duty,” snarled the Asset, “as übermensch. Because HYDRA made her their fucking prophet in Steve’s mind. Because <em>she always told him</em> that he’d have the chance to do his part for the world someday.”</p><p>Bucky whimpered. The Asset knew it had nothing to with the white-knuckled grip of their joined hands. Whether he remembered or not, it was clear Bucky knew how wrong that was.</p><p>“Eventually, they refined the memory manipulation process. When the wipes broke down, the first thing he remembered was the lie. He didn’t respond well when I questioned it.”</p><p>Bucky exhaled raggedly. “You learned not to.”</p><p>The Asset closed its eyes in shame, but also relief because Bucky <em>understood.</em> “They kept us separated for years at a time. We stopped recognizing each other. I didn’t know myself but whenever I saw him, I knew I was his and that he shouldn’t have been HYDRA’s.” And that meant that the Asset shouldn’t have been HYDRA’s.</p><p>“Eventually, everyone from the early years was gone. We were the only ones left. Those who worked with us knew that I was compliant, but not loyal to HYDRA. The Captain was loyal to HYDRA, but not compliant.” They’d treated them differently. It had been inevitable. No need to explain. No need to tell Bucky that the last time it remembered fighting was because it heard its Captain called <em>Captain Hydra,</em> and even as a joke it hadn’t been able to take that. No need to mention that Steve had been the one to subdue it. He’d answered to that name for years by then.</p><p>“Fuck,” said Bucky. “<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>They sat there for a while longer. The Asset didn’t let go of Bucky‘s hand. It wanted to fall into him, somehow. It wasn’t sure what it meant by that, but it thought they both wanted it.</p><p>Slowly, it bent towards him and pressed its forehead to his clavicle. It sighed as Bucky turned his nose into its hair. It didn’t want to finish the story, but it could tell up to 2014, at least.</p><p>“The Insight helicarriers,” it said. “In 2014.” No need to get into the details.</p><p>
  <em>The man in the red, white, and blue uniform touched down and folded his wings. Wings? That wasn’t right. But this was a dangerous opponent. Had to be, to feel this familiar.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Who are you?” it asked. The briefing had to be somewhere in its scrambled brain. All it needed was-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man looked surprised. “I’m Captain America.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Asset frowned. It shook its head. It couldn’t take its eyes off him to look over to the carrier its Captain was defending. It shouldn’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’m giving you one chance to stand down. Step aside, soldier.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The burst of light caught its attention before the sound of the explosion. Its Captain couldn’t fly, but this one could. It didn’t care about the mission or HYDRA. Any punishment would be worth it if its Captain survived. “If I do, will you try to save my Captain?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Captain America stared at him. “Are you asking me to save Captain Hydra?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It flinched but nodded. “You save him, or you have to kill me.”</em>
</p><p>“The Avengers had us in custody for just as long as it took Steve to come to. He wanted to regroup with HYDRA,” it confessed miserably. “I don’t remember a lot of the next couple of months, but one day I woke up drugged and restrained in a Canadian psychiatric facility with half the Avengers arguing outside the door. My only question was where Steve was. The answer was a cryo vault belonging to the US Army.”</p><p>Bucky squeezed its hand tightly. It squeezed back and breathed evenly into his shoulder. It had cried more today than in the past year. It didn’t help to cry. Nothing had ever helped.</p><p>“Shit, pal,” whispered the other Winter Soldier.</p><p>Nothing had ever helped. But there had never been a Bucky to hold it before.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Can we…” the Asset whispered. A second shower was an appealing thought, but that would be a dangerous luxury to accustom itself to having. “Can we lie down again?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Good idea,” said Bucky. “Still want the wall?”</p>
<p>It nodded. This time, it lay down with both hands tucked in front of it, under its chin.</p>
<p>Bucky lay down again too, but this time he faced the Asset and put a little more space between them. “Hey,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about any of that here. HYDRA never got my Steve.”</p>
<p><em>Are you sure? </em>It didn’t ask.</p>
<p>“He was found with the Valkyrie and defrosted in 2012. Aliens attacked. He became an Avenger. You mentioned the Avengers before.” Bucky inched closer and propped his chin on his left hand. “Then Insight Day happened. Pierce sent me after him, but seeing him shook something loose. I walked into the Tower on my own a week or so later, once my injuries were healed and I’d seen the Captain America and the Howling Commandos exhibit at the Smithsonian.”</p>
<p>“Oh, said the Asset, overwhelmed. <em>Aliens? Museum exhibits? What?</em> “He was in natural cryostasis?” Then it realized what it meant that the Valkyrie had been found. “Do… do you know the coordinates? Of the bomber?”</p>
<p>“I guess so. Don’t know I’d call it natural. Uh, I guess that means no one found Carter?”</p>
<p>The Asset shook its head. “If they did, no one told me. She was posthumously made the second Captain America. It began a tradition of passing the title on according to the joint decision of the US military and SHIELD. Captain America explained to me because I was so confused.”</p>
<p>Smilling grimly, Bucky said, “Confusion is the only thing that makes sense to me.”</p>
<p>The Asset smiled back. It knew exactly what he meant.</p>
<p>They lay there a while longer, steadily getting closer until Bucky’s head was tucked against the back of the Asset’s hands. It’s chin was in his hair. It was nice. The Asset didn’t move its hands, but it was nice. To touch.</p>
<p>“You don’t feel like company,” said Bucky, interrupting its contemplation. “I mean, you don’t feel like a threat like another person would.”</p>
<p>The Asset considered this. “We’re not one person, but I think we’re more similar than we are different.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” said Bucky. “That sounds right. Like the guy from the ‘40s was open source software, maybe. We look the same. We do most of the same things. Our development has been a little different, but we’re based on the same code.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think… I can’t run the programs necessary to be like you.”</p>
<p>“Are you bothered by that?” Bucky asked.</p>
<p>“No, I’m not,” it stated. “I don’t think I ever will be.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>It didn’t feel like Bucky was trying to argue with it. It needed him to understand. “Many reasons. I’m not good. I’m not okay. I can’t leave Steve, but I can’t be his Bucky either. I’m not important to anyone positively disposed towards me. I’m not supposed to be alive. The things I’ve done. The words.”</p>
<p>“What words?” asked Bucky.</p>
<p>“The control trigger words,” it said, meeting his eyes in puzzlement.</p>
<p>“I don’t remember anything like that,” he started to say.</p>
<p>“Желание,” it said carefully, watching him.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Bucky remembered.</p>
<p>“Stop,“ he said. “Fuck.” He shuddered at the phantom sensation of panting helplessly in the Chair as a handler recited the words that smothered what flickers of free will survived. “You came from 2018?”</p>
<p>“Yes,“ it told him. It sounded slightly apologetic about that fact.</p>
<p>“...and no one’s figured out how to get rid of them?”</p>
<p>“Not that I know of,“ it said. “But I don’t know if anyone really tried. The words are a useful control mechanism.”</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Bucky repeated. He’d have to find a way to explain it to Steve. He couldn’t even start to think about the fallout.</p>
<p>He’d have to explain the Asset too.</p>
<p>“We have until Steve returns,” he said. He ignored the shudder that ran through the Asset at the mention of Steve.</p>
<p>“We should make the most of it,” agreed the Asset. “Somehow.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A few days. Maybe a week. That was how long they had to find a way to appeal to Steve. The Asset had never been in a favorable position to appeal to anyone for help. Was the Asset in a favorable position now? Were they in a favorable position together?</p><p>The <em>physical </em>position they were in was nice. It didn’t want to react to the sudden hypersensitivity of the places they were touching, but the urge was growing undeniable.</p><p>“Somehow,” Bucky repeated. He shifted away a little, pulled the end of the pillow toward himself, and lowered his head to rest.</p><p>The Asset kept breathing as he looked speculatively at it. Bucky saw through it despite the effort, or maybe he just felt the same way.</p><p>Bucky said, “We can increase our tolerance. For touch.”</p><p>“Yes.” That sounded <em>good </em>in a way so little in its life did. It hadn’t had many opportunities to express an honest want and then actually have what it wanted.</p><p>How was Bucky so much better at this?</p><p>“How long have you been out?” the Asset asked. “You said it’s 2014.”</p><p>“It’s November 30th now, I think,” said Bucky. “Thanksgiving was a few days ago.”</p><p>“I forgot about Thanksgiving,” whispered the Asset. Holidays weren’t part of its life. It knew Thanksgiving fell on the fourth Thursday in November in the US, but mostly in the same way that it knew that November 7th was День Великой Октябрьской социалистической революции.</p><p>Bucky groaned and turned to push his face into the pillow. “Let’s not talk about it.”</p><p>The Asset made a noise of agreement and tried to relax into the space Bucky left, It had had a long stressful day already. The Asset hadn’t asked or been told, but Wakanda had to be at least seven or eight hours ahead of New York.</p><p>What would this Steve do with a Winter Soldier he had no shared history with? Would it be his decision? He was still Captain America here. Did he lead the Avengers? What did that even mean in a pre-Accords world? What had happened to the man who was Captain America in the Asset’s original timeline? What about the others it had seen in the battle this morning? In 2014, the Fridge had been taken by HYDRA and then abandoned. Did the other facilities used to contain enhanced individuals exist here? Maybe Iron Man had an appropriate space to keep it in. Maybe Bucky would be allowed to visit sometimes. That was the best it could dare to hope for. Five months here or maybe forever. It didn’t want to spend any more of its life <em>contained</em> and then deployed at the will of whatever authority thought they owned it.</p><p>Relaxing wasn’t as easy as it had hoped. Steve’s appearance had shattered its sense of safe unreality.</p><p>“Hey,” Bucky said softly. “You’re…” He didn’t have to finish.</p><p>The Asset was trembling, heart racing and breath coming in shuddering gasps that hurt its throat.</p><p>“I don’t… I don’t know how to feel safe again,” it confessed and closed its eyes against the new rush of tears.</p><p>***</p><p>Bucky watched helplessly as the Asset started to cry again. He didn’t think it would help to repeat what he’d been told about how crying was actually a sign that it felt safe enough<em> to</em> cry. He knew what it meant. Bucky’s own sense of safety was little better than a house of cards. It was made up of conditionals set on a foundation of his trust in Steve and himself. To not have that? That was terrible. He didn’t want to imagine what that would feel like, to know Steve and know he couldn’t be trusted.</p><p>There had to be something Bucky could do to regain the comfort they’d shared before Steve’s return.</p><p>Offering up his Captain America body pillow now would probably make things worse.</p><p>When he looked at the Asset, he couldn’t help but make a list in his head. Uncontrollable crying. Shaking. Verbal expressions of despair. Likely anxiety attack. Bucky would be thinking about calling one of his therapists. He wouldn’t do it, but he’d think about it.</p><p>Suggesting that was not an option either.</p><p>Touching was tempting, but Bucky already felt a little like he’d overindulged. The desperation was still there, but it was the same sort as a kid who had stolen a bag of candy but wasn’t used to sweets. They could touch. The Asset wasn’t going away. There was no need to have too much right now when it wouldn’t be as good as the first few touches. He wanted touching to stay good for them.</p><p>No to that too, now.</p><p>A distraction, then. What distractions could Bucky offer?</p><p>Food. Entertainment?</p><p>They could leave Bucky’s room.</p><p>They could… <em>not</em> play games. There had been too many games with HYDRA.</p><p>They could.... watch something and... have food.</p><p>Bucky was <em>not </em>having a bad day. Maybe he would have had a bad day before, but he had the Asset to worry about now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I don’t know if it will help,” said Bucky. “But I think we should eat again. In the kitchen. Something warm.”</p><p>The Asset sniffled and cleared its throat. “Is that allowed?” Tears were still running down its face. </p><p>Bucky knew exactly what it meant. “I’m allowed to use anything in the kitchen as long as I don’t do anything to deliberately endanger myself, others, or the structural integrity of the building.” It was nice to hear himself say it out loud. </p><p>The Asset absorbed this. “Soup, yes. IEDs, no, then,” it summarized with a watery smile.</p><p>Bucky’s face did something very similar, but less teary. He’d offered solid food before he’d believed the Asset was real. That clearly hadn’t been a problem. Wherever the Asset had been for the last three or four years, solid food had clearly been the norm. “We can do better than soup. Do you remember a mission with a cover as a short-order cook in a diner in Chicago?” </p><p>After a moment of blank-eyed introspection, the Asset said, “The floor was yellow and brown, in squares like a checkerboard. So many omelets. Meals were included, but all my stomach could tolerate was plain eggs.”</p><p>Bucky, who had been nodding along to the Asset’s description, knew exactly what to say. “Come on, pal. Cowboy with spurs?”</p><p>“Don’t cry over it,” finished the Asset. The tears were drying on its face. </p><p>“Yeah,” said Bucky. “Just let me make sure we’ll stay alone.”</p><p>He had to go out to the elevator and open the door to speak to the AI. Yes, Steve was on the quinjet. Bucky asked JARVIS to pass on his thanks. </p><p>Then he went back to give the Asset the all-clear.</p><p>***</p><p>Most of the time, Bucky avoided peppers of all kinds and disliked the smell of cooking ham. He didn’t have a problem making this omelet. The associations he had with the aroma were some of the very few memories that could be described better than negatively.</p><p>The fries had to be the kind that came out of a bag in the freezer and went into a tray in the oven, but the Denver omelet could be exactly as Bucky remembered dreaming about during the little time he’d been allowed to sleep on that mission. Most of the omelets broke when they were folded because of how overstuffed they were. The recipe called for four eggs, a quarter cup of cream, salt, salted butter, and half a cup each of diced ham, green peppers, and mixed shredded cheddar and American cheese. No onion. </p><p>This was an effort Bucky usually reserved for the best of good days, but with two of them, the process felt much less daunting.</p><p>They preheated the oven while gathering what they needed. The fries went into the oven first. The Asset took the eggs, cream, salt, large mixing bowl, and a whisk over to the kitchen table while Bucky diced the ham and peppers. </p><p>Bucky sautéed while the Asset mixed cream into beaten eggs. They didn’t need to speak. </p><p>Steve was always trying to talk to him. It was exhausting. It was nice to share space with someone who could predict what he would do without reminiscing or attempting to prompt him to do the same. </p><p>The Asset watched the half-stick of butter in the pan stop foaming before pouring in half of the egg mixture. Bucky grated cheese.</p><p>The fries came out of the oven as the Asset slid the second omelet onto a plate. Bucky salted and divided the fries between two bowls. The plates were not big enough. <br/><br/>The Asset poured them mugs of hot  water and found the jar of peppermint sticks while Bucky put on a nearly-muted documentary about animals migrating in Africa. Bucky tried not to feel anything about this display of memory. He took a sip of mildly peppermint-flavored water and then awkwardly picked up a plate and bowl.</p><p>They ate in silence, on the floor in front of Steve’s couch, wrapped in fleece blankets. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Winter Soldiers ate every scrap of food on their plates. They’d made very good omelets, just like the ones from four decades ago, and there was no need to deny the desire to lick the plates. It saved rinsing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. They set them aside on the floor as they finished their drinks and crunched the remains of the peppermint sticks. </p><p>Bucky didn’t want to break the quiet.</p><p>When Bucky glanced at it, the Asset nodded. Bucky turned up the volume, just slightly. They sat next to each other. There were a few inches between them. Over time, they started to lean. It wasn’t an accident, at least on Bucky’s part. He was very aware of their proximity. This way, they could make it seem natural instead of desperate.</p><p>Being so in sync with the Asset came as a deep relief. Bucky thought he might’ve had something like that with Steve, once, but now it happened just often enough to always feel like the first step onto an escalator. He lurched forward in space and time, but not under his own control. Once, it had happened for an entire two-minute conversation about the 1939 Dodgers lineup. Bucky had spent the next few days avoiding interaction. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if those moments came with memory, but they usually didn’t.</p><p>Sometimes his body did things, or his brain did, and <em> Bucky </em> wasn’t involved. </p><p>Thanksgiving had been a fucking disaster. </p><p>It had been a <em> series </em> of disasters, in fact, from Steve’s helpful <em> here, Buck, why don’t you mash these potatoes? </em> to the backslap from Thor which had catapulted him out of control of his body for the final time before he’d given in to the urge to flee.</p><p>Bucky thought he had some pretty good reasons for hiding in his room, really. It was supposed to be his <em> safe space</em>. It didn’t always feel that way, but it was supposed to be. He was working on it. </p><p>For a little while, at least a few days, maybe a week, the entire apartment was safe from other people. </p><p>Eventually, Bucky would have to leave the bed in order to make a “proof-of-life” appearance outside the blacked-out floor, but no one would come in.</p><p>“When Steve’s not here, I hafta show my face to someone at least once a day. S’long as I do, no one will come here to check on me.” He hadn’t consciously decided to speak, and the clear Brooklyn-accented words startled him. </p><p>The Asset nodded, brushing its shoulder against his. “Understood.” It was still staring at the screen. Birds were settling around a muddy waterhole, some of them on the backs of larger animals. </p><p>“Does your body just… do things, sometimes?” Bucky asked. </p><p>The Asset nodded slowly. “Not so much in the last couple years, but yeah. I say things too.”</p><p>Bucky inhaled, exhaled, and finally let himself shift sideways that last centimeter. The Asset pressed back. </p><p>It was nice to be understood. </p><p>***</p><p>The Asset tried to split its attention between the documentary and the pressure of Bucky’s shoulder plates against its own flesh through two layers of fleece. The voice had startled the Asset too. It had had most of its tendency toward that, or any, easily-identified accent beaten out of it, but it slipped sometimes as the result of stress or distraction.</p><p>As it went, such losses of control were not so unbearable. Sometimes, it pretended to slip when it most needed someone to listen to it.</p><p>There was a better-than-even chance that the first time this Steve raised his voice to the Asset, it would reflexively say <em> hail HYDRA. </em>Maybe it would flinch or cringe. Most likely it would try to placate.</p><p>Bucky should know. He needed to be prepared. The Asset doubted Bucky had that particular reaction in his history. </p><p>“How long until you are required to check in?” it asked instead.</p><p>“Technically, Steve saw me today, but he’ll be worried,” said Bucky. “He must think I’m having a bad day.” </p><p>The Asset took a moment to wistfully marvel at the first part of that statement. “What do you need to do?” it asked. </p><p>Bucky’s respiration returned to the careful pattern the Asset had observed previously. It felt a little guilty as it noticed his heart rate picking up. </p><p>“Gotta step into the elevator and be seen by the cameras, at minimum. Steve’s preference is that I go up to the Avengers’ shared spaces.” </p><p>The Asset dipped its head in acknowledgement, certain of Bucky’s decision.</p><p>It wasn’t surprised when he said, “I’ll have a look in the kitchen here and identify something to restock from the communal one. Later.”</p><p>“Later,” it echoed in agreement. Then, “Can I put my head on your shoulder?”</p><p>There was a snort of amusement. “I was just about to say that. But yeah, sure.” He paused. “It’s the metal one,” he said, completely unnecessarily. </p><p>“I’m aware,” it said.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After a while, the documentary ended. Their empty forks, plates, and mugs were where they’d discarded them after eating. There was an itch growing under Bucky‘s skin, but he wasn’t absolutely confident in his assessment that the Asset hadn’t fallen asleep on him. He wouldn’t disturb it voluntarily.</p><p>When the credits were done, the search page appeared again. </p><p>He considered reaching out for the remote with his feet, but that might also…</p><p>“M’wake,” mumbled the Asset. It lifted its head away, straightening until they no longer touched. </p><p>Part of Bucky was relieved. Most of him wanted it to have not moved at all. </p><p>He ran through the lists in his head. Recent actions. Permissible activities. Physical needs. Habits he was trying to cultivate. </p><p>Steve wasn’t here to provide him with cues or a plan for the day. Bucky was the host. It was up to him to make a decision about what they would do next. </p><p>He was exhausted just from thinking about thinking about it. </p><p>He needed to respond. The silence felt like a yawning gap waiting to swallow him. </p><p>“Yeah,” he croaked out. “Me too. Awake.”</p><p><em> Breathe</em>, he reminded himself. He cast his eyes around in search of inspiration and landed on the discarded dishes. His hands gathered them up. He was on his feet. His body started to turn toward the kitchen. </p><p>“Bucky,” said the Asset. </p><p>Bucky stopped. He was half-twisted away with shatter-resistant ceramic in his arms. He closed his eyes and turned back toward the Asset. </p><p>It looked up at him, shoulders hunched under the blanket. </p><p>“Am I a guest?” it asked. It had put on an uncertain smile for him. </p><p>Bucky wordlessly shook his head. <em> I don’t want you to be</em>. </p><p>It shed the blanket as it stood. Bucky’s eyes skittered over its torso. Familiar, but not. There was a line on the side of its face from pressing against his arm. Bucky held still as it took the mugs from him. They still smelled of the peppermint water. </p><p>“The peppermints,” he said. “I don’t. I don’t remember.” It felt familiar, even comforting, but he didn’t have any memories attached.</p><p>“You know them,” the Asset said, not arguing with him. “Sometimes it helps to think of the memories as parts of an impressionist painting, not a photo album. Now what do we do with these?”</p><p>Bucky tried to absorb this advice for a moment before he mentally shelved it for later. “Okay. Dishwasher.”</p><p>Maybe something else to drink. The Asset seemed dehydrated. </p><p>Maybe another peppermint stick. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eggs. They could use another dozen eggs. Eggs were nutrient-dense, high protein, complete nutrition, and low-residue. Bucky’s sometimes touchy digestive system never had a problem with them if they got as far as being consumed. Steve was a fried or scrambled kind of guy (although not as much as Bucky, pun intended), but Bucky was already thinking longingly of another omelet. There were six eggs left. They needed eight at minimum to make omelets for both of them.</p><p>Bucky clung to this train of thought as the elevator rose. Eggs. Eight more seconds and the doors would open on what should be a completely empty floor. Eggs. That was what he was here for. Eggs. In to the refrigerator, back to the elevator, and back down to the Asset. Eggs.</p><p>The doors opened.</p><p>He knew he was moving smoothly and steadily, but he felt like he stumbled out of the elevator. Eggs. He had to get eggs.</p><p>Five, six, seven steps toward the part of this floor that was the kitchen shared by the Avengers for socializing, and Bucky came to an abrupt halt. Something was wrong. What was different. What had changed? He’d been here for Thanksgiving. Something had changed.</p><p>Eggs. The refrigerator.</p><p>He didn’t move forward. His head swiveled, scanning for discrepancies. His memories of this space from Thanksgiving were blurry and jagged, unclear. Unhelpful.</p><p>“Pardon me, Mr. Barnes,” said JARVIS, frightening him into absolute stillness, “but you appear to be in some distress. May I ask what troubles you?”</p><p>It took whole long humiliating seconds to start breathing again and remember how to make his voice produce words. “Different. Something.” He dragged in another breath and remembered to count this time. Out. In again. “Something changed.” That was better. <em>Don’t stop breathing.</em></p><p>He’d come up here for eggs and because this ordeal would look like progress to the people who made decisions about him. Eggs.</p><p>The AI hadn’t been silent for long, maybe only a few seconds, but Bucky <em>needed to know</em> what was different.</p><p>“The door of the cabinet above the toaster was replaced yesterday morning. I’m afraid there was an accident connected with Mr. Odinson’s fondness for toaster pastries.”</p><p>Bucky nodded slowly. The nearly identical replacement would explain the sense of wrongness.</p><p>“May I be of any additional assistance?”</p><p>Bucky started to shake his head, then said, “Steve. Status?”</p><p>“Unharmed and not in immediate peril. Do you wish to-”</p><p>Bucky shook his head.</p><p>Then he retrieved a carton of eggs from the overstocked refrigerator and escaped.</p><p>***</p><p>The Asset paced the width of Bucky’s room. It didn’t like being alone here. All sense of security had left the floor with Bucky. Without him, it felt like an intruder waiting to be discovered. It was terrified of being caught here. How could it ever explain its presence without getting Bucky in trouble? It didn’t know the exact terms of Bucky’s tenure in the Tower, but it was sure to be precarious. Did having the Asset here count as contact with someone from HYDRA? That was a condition of the Asset’s work release. It wasn’t unreasonable to think Bucky might be under similar restriction.</p><p>It rubbed its right hand over a face which was dry but felt stiff and tight.</p><p>The Asset was so fucking tired.</p><p>It stopped pacing. It was next to the bed, but the bed was not inviting, not without Bucky. Instead, it sank to the floor next to the bed and lay on its back to stare at the smooth off-white ceiling.</p><p>Bucky must stare up at that ceiling too. Undoubtedly, he must also sometimes stare up at it with the trapped-animal fear beating in his chest that the Asset felt now. The bed couldn’t always be tolerable. At least some of the time, he must lie on the floor exactly like this.</p><p>It was oddly comforted by these thoughts, but felt guilty for wishing such moments on Bucky.</p><p>When it shook its head, something caught its eyes. It reached out, feeling under the edge of the bed, and smiled grimly. If it was allowed weapons out of the field, it would also secure one in this fashion. The gun was a Glock 19, obsessively cared for, soothing to the touch.</p><p>Maybe Bucky had more freedom than it imagined, if he was allowed to keep a gun under his bed.</p><p>The Asset left the handgun in place. It was about to sit up when it noticed something pushed farther back under the bed, closer to the opposite wall. Its sight picked up hints of red, white, and blue. It squinted and reached out to touch it. The surface was cool and smooth, fabric. The object gave under its fingers, soft and squishy, but not without a little resistance.<em> Like a cushion</em>, it thought, and then the arrangement of colors and shapes started to make sense. It hadn’t seen this outside pictures in a long time. Captain America didn’t look like this anymore. Captain America had wings to accommodate.</p><p>Bucky had a pillow shaped like… like his Steve must still look when he went on missions as Captain America. Bucky had a pillow that looked like <em>his</em> Captain America. He had a pillow that looked like Steve and he kept it under his bed.</p><p>The revelation chased itself around the Asset’s brain, like a puppy refusing to sit or stay. It didn’t know how to feel about it.</p><p>It wanted to pull the pillow out and crush it to its chest. It wanted to forget what it had seen. Thinking of Steve as Captain America <em>hurt</em>.</p><p>This Steve, <em>Bucky’s</em> Steve, had offered to stay behind to comfort Bucky instead of going on a mission. This Steve was still…</p><p>It flinched.</p><p>This Steve was still good. This Steve <em>was</em> a source of real comfort to Bucky.</p><p>Had Steve given Bucky the pillow? Had Bucky acquired it himself? Did Steve know about it?</p><p>Good thing the Asset was already lying flat because it felt dizzy. It wanted to laugh. It maybe wanted to cry again too.</p><p>A sound came from outside the room. The elevator had brought Bucky back.</p><p>The Asset left the pillow where it had found it and sat up.</p><p>***</p><p>Everything was <em>fine</em>. The Asset was waiting in Bucky’s bedroom, exactly where he’d left it.</p><p>Bucky let out the breath he had been holding since the elevator let <em>him </em>out.</p><p>He set the carton of eggs inside the potted plant by his door and strode forward, coming up short a step away from the Asset, which stopped too.</p><p>“Hug?” it asked, or maybe offered.</p><p>Bucky fell into its arms, and finally let himself tremble.</p><p>The Asset took his full weight effortlessly.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That night, they slept together in Bucky’s bed.</p><p>They discussed it beforehand. They had violent nightmares, lethal startle reflexes, and weren’t used to sleeping with another body in the bed.</p><p>It would be worth the risk to try.</p><p>The Asset had expected to struggle with actual sleep. It hadn’t slept like this since before HYDRA. It slept on its front, baring its back to the world. Bucky nestled into its side with an arm thrown over its shoulders and his nose in its hair. To its recurring surprise, sleep came as naturally as resting its head on Bucky’s shoulder had before. Every couple of hours, one or both of them came awake, startled by the absence of the things that usually woke them.</p><p>Despite the starting and stopping, this was probably the best sleep it had had without drugs in years. Its stomach had been full when it went to bed, this was a secure location, and it trusted Bucky like it trusted itself, which wasn’t total, but was enough.</p><p>When the Asset woke for good in the morning, it wasn’t sure where its limbs all were, except for its left arm, of course, which always provided the same kinesthetic feedback. There was a checklist to run through whenever it regained consciousness and the results were usually not what it could term <em>nice</em>. It smiled when it remembered where it was and discovered Bucky was still deeply asleep. One of his knees had found its way between its legs, he had a mouthful of its hair, and there was a firm warm pressure against its hip.</p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>The Asset wasn’t sure what to do. That wasn’t usually an issue for it. It could count the number of times it had found that part of it to be operational since its own 2014. The number wasn’t high and the issue had always resolved itself with time, cold, and discomfort. Without further action on the part of the Asset.</p><p>On the other hand, Bucky deserved pleasure if he could make himself feel okay with it. Wasn’t that the point of the experiment they had initiated yesterday?</p><p>With long practice at remaining still, the Asset closed its eyes again. It wouldn’t do anything to make Bucky uncomfortable. It didn’t know how HYDRA had raped him, only that they had, and violently enough to leave visible scars. If Bucky’s dick could function despite that, good for him.</p><p>Was it difficult for him to touch that part of himself, like it was for the Asset?</p><p><em>Stop thinking about Bucky’s dick</em>, it told itself.</p><p>Bucky would deal with it or he wouldn’t. Either way, it had nothing to do with the Asset.</p><p>The Asset sucked on the inside of its own lower lip, considering. If Bucky did find it hard to touch, would it be easier for…</p><p>
  <em>No. </em>
</p><p>These thoughts were the product of spending the night pressed against a warm body.</p><p>Besides, it knew Bucky was traumatized. He would have been traumatized even without the rape. It was hard to own the body you lived in when you had no autonomy or privacy. Touching things you didn’t own was only allowed with permission.</p><p>That was something to think about. So far, they had discussed touching each time. Eventually, it would be ideal to not have to ask about certain touches. Hugs were good, despite the frequent cardiac effort. Shoulders had been fine so far. If it knew the touch was coming, it was never as afraid with Bucky as it was with anyone else. Where else was it okay for them to touch? How?</p><p>A few facilities ago, a doctor had given it a paper with the outline of a human form. It wasn’t an outline particularly appropriate to whatever the Asset was, but it thought of it now because the instruction given had been to mark places where it felt pain or discomfort. It had stared at the doctor until the paper had been removed.</p><p>It wished it had that paper now, for a different purpose.</p><p>Bucky woke then, nearly inhaling the Asset’s hair. That was a little funny, even if it left the Asset desperately in need of another shower. Bucky moved away from the Asset immediately, face slightly pink, and the Asset pretended to wake up too.</p><p>“Bathroom,” Bucky whispered and rolled off the bed.</p><p>As soon as he was out of the room, the Asset put the pillow over its head and covered its ears.</p><p>***</p><p>The Asset was face-down with the pillow over its head when Bucky opened the bathroom door again. He’d put the fan on, but the general silence made him uncomfortably aware of their enhanced hearing. There was no reason for embarrassment. Bucky’s preference was for privacy, now that he was allowed preferences, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of secrets from this other version of himself.</p><p>It wasn’t like he’d been jerking off. He hadn’t done that since… some time ago.</p><p>Would he have minded the Asset listening in on that sort of thing if he had? Maybe. Maybe not. He probably <em>should </em>mind. Either way, there was no need to find out.</p><p>Bucky kept a large plastic cup by the bathtub for the frequent times when he didn’t feel prepared for the entire process of filling, soaking, and draining. He’d washed off, only bothering with a little body wash since he was too impatient to deal with his hair. He’d had a moment of fantasizing about washing each other which had been startling enough as a start to the day.</p><p>They might try a lot of things in five months, if they could. Bucky couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of thinking that far ahead, but he’d do his best to make sure nothing happened to stop them getting the chance.</p><p>“Sorry ‘bout the goat impression with your hair,” said Bucky as he tossed his towel on top the rest of the laundry and went to his dresser in search of a change of clothing. “You should try the conditioner and shampoo I got.”</p><p>The Asset mumbled something indistinct and probably not actual words before letting go of the pillow and sitting up. “S’fine,” it told him.</p><p>When it took its turn in the bathroom, the hiss of the shower starting up was enough to drive Bucky out of the room. The idea of the Asset enjoying the hot water had to be the least panic-inducing thought he’d had regarding showers in a long time, but he was allowed to move away from sources of discomfort.</p><p>He wasn’t particularly hungry, as far as he could tell, but eating after waking was expected here, and it gave him something to do.</p><p>The Asset liked fresh fruit.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bucky had seven types of fresh fruit washed and cut by the time the Asset came out to the kitchen. Three of those were citrus, and two were melons, so it wasn’t a great accomplishment. Bananas and apples were easy.</p><p>On second thought, maybe Bucky <em>was</em> a little proud.</p><p>The Asset’s eyes roved over the platters hungrily, but it waited a few steps away. “Morning,” it said, but didn’t approach the food.</p><p>Fairly sure he knew what was happening in its head, Bucky didn’t comment and instead nudged a platter of sliced cantaloupe in its direction.</p><p>It picked up a piece and nibbled at it in a hesitant and familiar manner.</p><p>Bucky really hoped he wasn’t as transparent to anyone else, but since he knew it didn’t want to be watched while it pretended it didn't want to scarf everything in sight, he had to do something else.</p><p>Bucky eyed the banana he’d cut up and ran through the list of recipes he remembered now. The omelets they had made twice yesterday stood out far more clearly than anything else. He was confident he could grill or fry things and do about a dozen different things with eggs or potatoes.</p><p>He could… make French toast. Whether he could eat it was a separate concern. It wasn’t often that a loaf of bread survived long enough in this kitchen to go stale, but Steve hadn’t been around to eat two meals yesterday. French toast was a good way to use day old bread. Bucky thought he remembered that, anyway. He turned his back to the Asset completely to open the refrigerator and retrieve butter, cream, and the remaining eggs.</p><p>Sugar and spices came next. There was a jar of vanilla paste on the counter next to the sugar. Bucky had been wary of using it at first, but Steve said it supported farmers and, to a supersoldier, there was a distinct difference between imitation vanilla and the real thing and even more a difference between the paste and extract. As long as Stark was buying, there was no reason not to use it.</p><p>There was something Bucky was missing from the ingredients list.</p><p>Well, the bread still needed slicing. He’d think about it a while longer. Maybe the Asset would know.</p><p>He gave it a quick glance and saw that it had cleared a careful thirty percent of each fruit with the exception of the apple and orange slices. It might have been a mistake to slice up oranges, tangerines, <em>and </em>grapefruit. Steve was currently enamored of grapefruit. Bucky couldn’t understand why. If he was going to cover the grapefruit with sugar, why not just eat a citrus fruit that was meant to be sweet?</p><p>Bucky turned back to the task of slicing bread and beating the eggs and seasonings.</p><p>He didn’t startle when the Asset set the salt shaker next to the butter, but that was because he’d been very aware of trying not to look like he was trying not to look like he was tracking its movement. Wasted effort.</p><p>The Asset ducked its head a little and said, “Salt.”</p><p>Nearly as embarrassed, Bucky said, “Oh. Yeah.”</p><p>“And cinnamon or nutmeg,” it said. “If that’s French toast.”</p><p>“What’s what I was planning,” Bucky told it.</p><p>It nodded.</p><p>They stared at each other.</p><p>“You could eat the rest of the tangerine and grapefruit,” Bucky said and broke eye contact. “And the, uh, I’ve had a lot of the green melon recently.” He couldn’t remember what it was called. Couldn’t remember if he’d known before, either.</p><p>“You’ll eat the apples and oranges,” it said. It wasn’t an order. It was barely a statement and closer to a question or invitation.</p><p>Bucky nodded, appreciative. Sometimes he wished someone would simply tell him what to do again, but the last time someone else had given him too many instructions, he’d nearly marched out of the tower in some kind of unthinkingly homicidal fugue state. Stark hadn’t tried to look at the arm since.</p><p>The Asset found the skillet they’d used for the omelets and set it on the burner before going back for a slice of grapefruit.</p><p>A hint of salt went first into Bucky’s right hand and then into the mixing bowl to be whisked in. Then he started setting slices of bread to soak in the egg mixture. He was certain this was the correct procedure. “No dry bread,” he said. He was certain the Asset would know if it wasn’t.</p><p>“In the middle of the French toast,” finished the Asset.</p><p>Bucky ducked his head and let himself smile.</p><p>***</p><p>It took until the first batch of French toast was done for Bucky to become aware of his hunger, or so the Asset estimated. It had taken maybe two years for its own appetite to become reliable, so it could sympathize.</p><p>What was the damn green melon called? Bucky clearly didn’t know or he would have said. <em>Tangerine</em>, the Asset thought. <em>Grapefruit</em>. It wasn’t sure it had ever eaten either of them before. Which was which? It knew they had to be the other citrus fruits. Tangerine was a color, wasn’t it? Hadn’t there been a computer named Tangerine? It was the one that looked almost the same as an orange. Grapefruit had to be the pink one which was so sour and bitter. It was an odd name.</p><p>It ate another bite of the green melon and watched with satisfaction as Bucky made short work of the sliced apple. If it never ate another apple, it would be… not too soon, really. Apple was perfectly fine. It was just much more exciting to eat other fruit.</p><p>The Asset folded a piece of French toast around slices of banana. It had had bananas before the last transfer, but then it had been nearly two years of an apple or orange every day at lunch. Apples at least had more variety than oranges, or at least the oranges it had received. It ate the French toast and banana with its left hand while it used its right to fry the rest of the French toast. Bucky had done almost all of the work already, and it really didn’t want him to start thinking he needed to fulfill any hosting expectations.</p><p>“I want to touch you more, but I don’t know how,” it said. It watched the sizzling food instead of Bucky.</p><p>“Yeah,” said Bucky.</p><p>Something in his tone caught its attention. “You have an idea,” it said.</p><p>“Not exactly,” Bucky said. “I just figure neither of us has lice, so we might as well share a hairbrush.”</p><p>The Asset only stiffened a little. “I combed my hair.” With its fingers, yes, but it had come out neat enough.</p><p>“But I could brush it out for you,” said Bucky. “And then you could brush mine.”</p><p>“Oh,” said the Asset, suddenly breathless.</p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>The hairbrushing idea was a </em>really <em>good one,</em> the Asset thought drowsily. It let Bucky’s right hand take most of the weight of its head as he used the other hand to stroke over its scalp and down the side of its neck. Bucky’s hairbrush was made entirely of some sort of transparent glittery light blue plastic. The bristles were thick and shaped almost like cotton swabs. They had just enough give to feel almost like tiny fingertips on its head instead of hard plastic. It was the most unlikely-looking personal maintenance tool. The Asset wondered if they made them like that in its timeline. It might be allowed to keep one like that since all parts of the brush could be seen through.</p><p>Every stroke sent sparkles of sensation from the crown of its head down its spine. Each point of contact flared with a sharp sensation almost like a burn. It was just on the edge of pain, like holding a mouthful of an over-carbonated beverage. The slight tug on its hair as the bristles pulled through them was making it aware of muscles and tendons and tension that it had forgotten existed. It would push back into the sensation, except that would mean having to support the weight of its head again.</p><p>“Dunno if I’ll be able to return the favor, Bucky,” it sighed. “You’ve turned me to putty.”</p><p>Bucky made a soft huffing noise which it felt comfortable interpreting as a laugh. “That good, huh?”</p><p>It closed its eyes and sagged a little more. “<em>So</em> good.”</p><p>The Asset considered vaguely the idea of giving him a thumbs up gesture, but that would mean sending mental signals to move one of its hands, which would involve everything from arm to shoulder to neck to head and undo this amazing lack of tension.</p><p>“I won’t mind if you fall asleep,” murmured Bucky. “We’ve got time.”</p><p>“Hmm,” the Asset tried to say, but the bristles swept gently past its ear again and that was all. It had been sedated for major surgeries with less soporific effect.</p><p>***</p><p>Staring down at the Asset dozing with its head in his hands, Bucky felt an unfamiliar tight wobbly sensation in his chest. It was something like terror, and yet it was <em>good </em>somehow. He trusted the Asset, beyond all rationality, and recognised that it must feel the same way, but this was different somehow to falling asleep in the same bed. Bucky had to consciously keep his breath and heart rate slow and steady. The Asset would wake for signs of panic, and it hadn’t had much truly restful sleep in even longer than Bucky had.</p><p>It wasn’t exactly in Bucky’s lap, it was close. They were on the floor in front of the couch again. Bucky had pulled down one of the couch cushions for it to slump back against from where it sat in front of him.</p><p>Bucky had to grip the brush a little tighter to keep his arm steady. The Asset’s hair was beginning to become staticky, but he continued to brush.</p><p>He wanted to know what it was experiencing. He wanted that so much it was painful.</p><p>But even more than he wanted to experience that, he wanted to do <em>this</em>. He was making this experience possible for the Asset. If he never did anything else good in the world, he had done this. The Asset deserved to feel good, if it could permit itself to try. Bucky wanted to make it feel good. Maybe he even <em>needed</em> to help it feel good.</p><p>Distracted by these thoughts, Bucky didn’t think much of it when the Asset shifted slightly.</p><p>***</p><p>Metal brushed the back of the Asset’s neck, and it was horribly abruptly wide awake. It flinched forward onto hands and knees, and then froze in panic at its stupidity as it had to fight the instinctive urge to pull away from the strap that would be tightened across its throat if it struggled. It just had to do what it was supposed to, accept its lot, and no worse unknown punishment or procedure would be implemented this time.</p><p>“R-ready to comply,” it stuttered. Too slow. Too <em>late</em>. The Asset straightened up, trying to show its acceptance of the guiding bar. The neck always came first. There was no reason for panic. It knew the procedure. It could endure it. It could comply. It didn’t have to be <em>happy </em>to comply. All too aware that closed fists were often taken as indications of defiance, the Asset flattened both palms against the… against the table? This wasn’t a table. Wasn’t there always a table or raised platform?</p><p>“...Manhattan, New York, December first, 2014. You were born James Buchanan Barnes. You call yourself… the Asset, now. You’re not there, wherever there is. You’re here. We’re in Avengers Tower, in Manha-”</p><p>The Asset blinked, shivered, and recognised its own voice, not as it sounded to itself, but as it had heard it in recordings and over comms. It stared at the carpet under its palms. It was modern synthetic materials. Deep pile, multiple shades of blue.</p><p>Blue. Like Bucky’s hairbrush.</p><p>Bucky was the one speaking. Bucky had been brushing its hair.</p><p>The Asset knew that, but it also knew that if it moved, it would be harshly corrected. If it moved its eyes, it would see the blue gloves and white coats and the bored-but-too-interested guards, all of them waiting to touch it with their gloves and instruments and it couldn’t invite that, so it couldn’t move even its eyes. Its chest moved, fast and shallow. That was all that was allowed. Making eye contact would get it beaten with a stun baton before anything else.</p><p>It was frustrating for its mind to put it here, like this, when <em>this </em>hadn’t happened in so long. There was no excuse for it to be trapped now. This wasn’t something that still happened to it.</p><p><em>“That’s </em>sexual abuse<em>. Anyone tries to do something like that again, you </em>fight <em>them, and you get away no matter what it takes,” Captain America had told it. “That’s an order, Bar… Asset. That’s an order. That should never happen.</em>”</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t take orders from you,” it had said, because that was easier and more honest than admitting it didn’t understand. </em>
</p><p>But it hadn’t forgotten, and eventually Captain America had become part of its new chain of command.</p><p>Nothing was touching it except for the carpet and the clothes covering its skin.</p><p>
  <em>I’m wearing clothes. There’s a blue carpet. That’s Bucky’s voice.</em>
</p><p>It flexed its tongue against its teeth and hard palate. It tasted fruit. Banana. Citrus. Melon.</p><p>“Honeydew,” it breathed, and just like that, it could speak. It couldn’t move, but it could speak.</p><p>Bucky’s words came to a sudden stop. “Honeydew?” he repeated. He sounded wary. The Asset wanted to take his hand and reassure him.</p><p>“The… the green melon,” it said. “Honeydew.”</p><p>“Huh,” said Bucky. After an awkward moment, he spoke again. “Can I do anything to help?”</p><p>The Asset considered. It was surprisingly unstressed by Bucky’s presence behind it, but it didn’t want to stay here. It couldn’t make itself move. The position it was in was holding it on the edge of additional flashbacks.</p><p>“Could you,” it asked, “pick me up and put me on the couch? I can’t move.”</p><p>Bucky didn’t ask if it needed him to come around where it could see him first, but he did, because he knew. “Ready?” he asked.</p><p>The Asset closed its eyes. “Yes.”</p><p>Bucky lifted the Asset by its upper chest like it was a toddler and pulled it to its feet and back onto the couch. Its eyes opened as he released it. Without thought, it tucked its feet up under it to avoid slipping into the gap left by the cushion he had removed.</p><p>“Thank you,” it said. It wrapped its arms around its knees and tried to steady itself. Nothing bad had happened. It shouldn’t shake like this now.</p><p>“Can I sit with you?” Bucky asked.</p><p>It nodded.</p><p>Bucky picked up the cushion that had been lying on the floor and put it back in place before he sat on the other end of the couch. It wasn’t a small couch, but it wasn’t quite big enough to eliminate the likelihood of touching.</p><p>The Asset wiggled its toes at him.</p><p>Bucky wiggled his back.</p><p>“Was it the metal?” he asked.</p><p>“Metal on the back of my neck,” it said. It could keep itself from touching him, but it wasn’t willing to give that up.</p><p>The silence resumed and neither of them apologized, although it knew they must both want to. “It’s HYDRA’s fault,” it said, very quietly, because it had to say something to explain.</p><p>“Yes,” Bucky said.</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>However much he wanted to, Bucky didn’t offer the Asset a hug. The sympathetic crawling of his skin told him that was a bad idea.</p><p>Flashbacks could take a lot of forms. There were the full-immersion ones where the past overtook the brain and body, ones where past and present happened simultaneously, and the ones that were sense and memory echoes. The therapists explained it a little differently, but Bucky didn’t need their professional vocabulary.</p><p>He hadn’t needed to be told that the first two kinds usually lingered as the last kind. Flashbacks didn’t just stop. Instead, they receded like waves from a shore, and there was always something left behind whether it was water, slime, or debris.</p><p>Flashbacks were messy. They could turn a good day into a bad week, sometimes. They tainted the reality of the present and made benign things conjure the sense and memory echoes.</p><p>Touch initiated by Bucky could begin to make the Asset feel unsafe. <em>Bucky </em>was starting to feel unsafe just thinking about it. He’d picked the Asset up, but that had been functional. That wasn’t any different than asking Steve to help him unclench his fists from something.</p><p>It would be better to either try to get up and do something actively distracting or go back to sleep. They had shared a bed last night. Could the Asset tolerate that in the wake of the flashback? He didn’t want it to think Bucky was questioning its ability to take care of itself. It had had years of self-sufficiency to remember its past and develop coping strategies, hadn’t it? The Asset had left its recent history vague after the second time it had been in the custody of the Avengers. Its Steve had been put into cryo, but it had been in a psychiatric facility. The Avengers would have ensured it got some help. He fucking hoped so, anyway. There wasn’t much in its story that wasn’t terrible to think about. Bucky was afraid to ask for more details.</p><p>It felt like a long time before the Asset uncurled enough to touch Bucky again, and then it was only a gentle <em>hey, I’m still here </em>tapping of toes. It pulled its legs away to curl up tighter but changed its mind and swung them around to put its feet on the floor.</p><p>“I want to go back to bed,” said the Asset, and Bucky carefully didn’t show any relief, or hoped he didn’t.</p><p>“Should I come with you?” he asked.</p><p>The Asset was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t want to make this a bad day for you, Bucky.”</p><p>That was a yes, then.</p><p>“You aren’t,” he told it. “Didn’t have anything planned.”</p><p>***</p><p>Later, in bed with their positions nearly reversed from how they’d slept the previous night, the Asset breathed softly into Bucky’s hair. Bucky didn’t mind the wall side. Technically, he’d always had the wall side when it was only him in this bed. Anyway, he got it. The Asset needed a clear path to the door, even though it was facing Bucky.</p><p>He didn’t ask if it was feeling better now. It probably wasn’t or wasn’t better enough that the question wouldn’t be irritating.</p><p>One of the best parts of being here, instead of at war or with HYDRA, was that he didn’t <em>have </em>to get up again and pretend to be fine as soon as he was knocked down. It wouldn’t get him or anyone killed if he took the time. Steve’s fucking hipocritical doublestandard meant he never took the time for himself, but he’d been one of the first to make sure Bucky understood that <em>Bucky </em>could.</p><p>The Asset’s Steve wouldn’t be as understanding, Bucky was sure. Bucky was also sure he didn’t want to think about the Asset’s Steve.</p><p>He wondered when the Asset had discovered that this was something allowed.</p><p>Eventually, the silence started to bother him. Neither of them were sleeping, and he felt the need to do or say <em>something</em> to resolve the tension he was maybe imagining.</p><p>Bucky had been without the right to say what he wanted to say, or even want to say things, for so long. Now, even though he struggled with it, hearing himself speak was the fastest way to reassure himself that he was safe. Maybe that was the tension he was feeling. He wanted the Asset to feel safe and comfortable and be able to sleep and put the flashback away. He was feeling inhibited from speaking in a way he wasn’t used to in his room. It didn’t mean there was tension <em>between</em> them.</p><p>“Can I put my arm over your shoulders?” he whispered. He didn’t turn on his side to look at its expression.</p><p>There was a longer silence than Bucky was at all comfortable with.</p><p>“I let down my guard,” said the Asset. It sounded like it couldn’t decide between thoughtful and miserable. “I didn’t think anything bad would happen.”</p><p>That sounded like a no about the shoulders, and also really damn worrying.</p><p>“Was it a bad idea?” Bucky asked. He’d really wanted to try it, but probably it wasn’t worth risking a reaction like this.</p><p>“It felt amazing. I didn’t think I <em>could </em>drop my guard like that. I wasn’t worrying about reacting. I… forgot. I’m not used to…” it trailed off.</p><p>Bucky waited nervously.</p><p>“I’m not used to being able to forget how fucked up I am,” it finished. “Left me wide open. Unprepared. To go back there in my head. Even when I knew I was here, I couldn’t shake it.”</p><p>It had been at least half asleep, but Bucky knew that wasn’t any excuse.</p><p>“Thanks for picking me up,” it said, almost shyly, and Bucky could breathe again.</p><p>“Sure,” he said. “I can’t count how many times I’ve been stuck like that and wished I had another me to help me.” He meant it. “Are you sure one of us isn’t hallucinating?” He didn’t mean that.</p><p>He probably didn’t mean that.</p><p>The Asset let out a puff of air. “Maybe you should wait to ask me about my sense of reality until after I wake up,” it suggested.</p><p>Bucky looked up at the ceiling. “Fair enough,” he agreed. He closed his eyes.</p><p>***</p><p>They ended up trying to sleep away most of the second day. Recent events were a lot to process, and not just because part of the Asset’s yesterday had been more than three years after their new <em>today</em>. It was a lot to think about, even before whatever flashback the Asset had experienced.</p><p>If Steve was here, Bucky would have therapy tomorrow. They wouldn’t be coming here without any of the Avengers present, but he’d be expected to check in. What could he possibly say? </p><p>Bucky tried to avoid thinking about telling Steve about the Asset or the trigger words, but that left the sight of the Asset on hands and spread knees on the floor. Bucky didn’t know exactly what it had been experiencing in the flashback, but he knew it had been trapped and restrained and object-raped, probably, according to what it had said. With something that shocked it inside.</p><p>He couldn’t imagine it. He’d taken more than a few batons, but they’d never actually been turned on. As far as remembered, which wasn’t saying much, all electricity had been externally applied. If that ever happened to him, he didn’t remember it yet and kinda hoped he never would.</p><p>He’d seen the scars. He’d even suspected their cause. The Asset had <em>mentioned</em> restraints. He should have known that its visible not arm-related scars would be from the rape.</p><p>His were.</p><p>Next time, because there <em>would</em> be a next time, Bucky would remember not to touch one of those scars with his left hand or even not to touch the scars at all.</p><p>There was feeling safe enough, good enough, to relax, and then there was being careless. Carelessness led to injury or collateral damage.</p><p>And damn him, but he still wanted to know what it would feel like.</p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>What happened to the fluff and comfort? I had nice things planned, I swear.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Asset kept its eyes closed when Bucky got up to go show his face outside the blacked out floor. Bucky knew it wasn’t sleeping, no doubt, but he made no effort to get a reaction from it. It appreciated the kindness.</p><p>The Asset tried to avoid thinking about anything but the present. It had lost its entire world, both figuratively and as literally as could ever be possible. It used to know its place, but now it wasn’t even sure of <em>Bucky’s</em> place. The Asset had no place here. Being a “timeline refugee” was unlikely to absolve it of all that came with being the Asset. Did it count as a US citizen? It didn’t have anything to prove its origins, let alone a visa.</p><p>All it had was the face it shared with Bucky.</p><p>It didn’t know, and severely doubted, that Bucky was actually in a position to shelter it without risking himself or even this Steve.</p><p>This was a critical intel gap.</p><p>It knew what it needed to ask, but it had avoided providing details of its own legal status to Bucky for reasons it feared Bucky might share in part.</p><p>Reasons it tried not to think about.</p><p>***</p><p>He’d cut up nearly all the fresh fruit for breakfast, but Bucky didn’t have the… will? energy? to go to the shared kitchen. He took a fortifying breath and pressed the button for the elevator. It arrived in too few seconds. When he stepped into it, JARVIS asked for his destination. Bucky shook his head and forced himself to tilt his head up to expose his face to one of the cameras before reaching out to press the open button.</p><p>“There is a message for you from Captain Rogers,” JARVIS informed him.</p><p>He had been preparing to step back out, but this announcement froze him mid-motion. “Yes?”</p><p>“He wishes you to know that the Avengers have successfully concluded their mission.”</p><p>Bucky became aware of his fast heart rate and shallow breathing becoming even faster and shallower. Steve couldn’t come back <em>now</em>. They should have another day to prepare! At least!</p><p>JARVIS continued. “No members of the team have reported injuries. The Avengers will remain to assist with cleanup efforts and return approximately midday tomorrow. Would you like to speak to Captain Rogers?”</p><p>There wasn’t a single thing Bucky could imagine saying to Steve that wouldn’t have him convinced he needed to hurry back. Bucky shook his head.</p><p>Then, he darted out of the elevator and pressed his hand against the button to close the door to Steve’s floor.</p><p>Sleep. The Asset, at least, should sleep. He felt too wide awake to spend any more time in bed.</p><p>They should probably eat again, now that he thought about it. Something easy. Something they could maybe drink and that wouldn’t require the Asset to get up.</p><p>Something that didn’t require the blender. Better not to find out if the Asset would react to the sound the same way he did.</p><p>By the time he reached the kitchen area, his breathing was steady and his pulse was nearly normal.</p><p>Ovaltine. Steve said it didn’t taste the same, but the sound of the word was comforting. There were a lot of things Bucky didn’t remember that had positive or negative associations.</p><p>The clock on the microwave displayed a time that meant Bucky and the Asset had approximately sixteen hours to come up with a plan for Steve’s return and inevitable discovery of the Asset.</p><p>Bucky made a pitcher of lumpy brown sludge with mostly Ovaltine and whey powder with some chocolate syrup and vanilla paste, frowned at the color and consistency, and thinned it out with hot water. It was still lumpy. It didn’t look lumpy when Steve made it. This was a beverage Steve mostly made when eating hadn’t happened, so Bucky didn’t have the clearest memory of the process, but he knew these were the basic ingredients. Had he mixed them in the wrong order? That must be it. Maybe it was meant to be mixed cold and then heated? Should he have followed the Ovaltine directions on the container and then added the other ingredients?</p><p>Lumpy or not, Bucky would drink it, but he’d wanted to do better for the Asset.</p><p>He inhaled shakily and let himself resent how much he wanted to give up and go back to bed or hear Steve’s voice tell him this wasn’t a problem or ask the Asset to give him a hug. This was stupid. It wasn’t even <em>Bucky’s</em> bad day, really. He shouldn’t be this damn upset over lumpy Ovaltine.</p><p>His skin felt too tight. His chest was too tight. His <em>throat</em> felt too tight.</p><p>Bucky sat down on the kitchen floor and wrapped his arms around his chest. How had he managed to fool himself into thinking he had any capacity to make anything good for the Asset? He couldn’t even ensure adequate caloric intake.</p><p>Steve was going to take one look at the situation and, reasonably, determine that Bucky couldn’t take care of his guest. Bucky was a fucking mess that couldn’t even make a hot drink without breaking down. He’d tricked the Asset into feeling safe for a little while, but now it knew better. Bucky was useless.</p><p>No wonder he wasn’t allowed to watch Steve’s back. Bucky wasn’t any kind of asset these days.</p><p>Maybe the Asset had it right and Bucky was fooling himself into thinking he could be a functional Bucky.</p><p>There was a hiss of water against the floor of the shower. He curled up and waited for the cold needles of water to hit him. By the time the water turned off, they still hadn’t, which didn’t make sense, but a lot of things didn’t make sense to him, so actually that made complete sense. Confusion was what he understood the best, just like he’d said before to the Asset.</p><p>The Asset took showers.</p><p>He stayed where he was and tried to organize his thoughts, but it was like trying to hold fifty marbles in his hands. Bucky had lost a lot of his marbles. He’d trip over some of them later and fall flat on his face just like now. No wonder they used that expression.</p><p>There were soft footsteps approaching from the direction of the bedroom Bucky slept in, which was his bedroom because Steve said it was, and which Bucky never wanted to leave again but couldn’t make himself get off the floor to retreat to right now.</p><p>“You didn’t come back to bed,” the Asset said from maybe two meters away.</p><p>***</p><p>If the Asset had ever been asked what it would expect from a version of Bucky at this point in 2014, it would probably not have answered, but it would have expected something much closer to this than what it had seen of Bucky so far. It had hoped its expectations were wrong. The discovery was bitter.</p><p>“Steve’s coming back tomorrow,” said Bucky. He didn’t look in its direction.</p><p>The Asset couldn’t deal with that right now.</p><p>“We need a plan,” Bucky continued, “but I’m a useless mess that can’t even make a hot drink right.”</p><p>It sat down about half a meter away from him and said, “You’re doing better than I was.”</p><p>Bucky snorted dismissively. “You had more reason to be fucked up post-Insight.”</p><p>That might be strictly true, but it wasn’t the Asset’s point. “I would never have thought of the hair brushing.” It paused and then said, “Speaking of which, I would like to try it.” Anything to make them both stop hurting again. Bucky had liked doing it before the Asset had been careless and ruined the whole day.</p><p>“I,” Bucky said. “Will it bother you if… I have this pillow. I don’t know if you saw…”</p><p>“Under the bed?” it checked. “I can get it for you.”</p><p>“Okay,” said Bucky quietly.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a moment after the Asset pulled the pillow out from under the bed, it gave into the impulse from the day before and crushed it to its chest. The pillow smelled like Bucky’s shampoo. It was soft, but firm enough that it didn’t compress to uselessness. The pillow was a squishy pillar of Captain America. It looked a lot like Steve in the old Captain America suit, but it was an artist’s rendering, like a poster, not a photo. The Asset was glad. A photo would have been... unsettling.</p><p>When the Asset brought the pillow out to Bucky, it found him still on the kitchen floor. When he looked up at it, the Asset reached out to pull him to his feet and led him over to the couch without releasing his hand. It passed him the pillow as they walked.</p><p>Bucky‘s hairbrush was still on the floor where they had left it that morning. That morning felt very far away now. The Asset did its best to push the memory away.</p><p>“I want to brush your hair, like you did for me,” it told him.</p><p>Bucky visibly perked up a little, and the Asset regretted that it had not clarified that when asking. Irrationally, it was both hurt and concerned that Bucky seemed to have thought the Asset would ask him to do that for it when he was clearly spiraling on the kitchen floor. It wasn’t rational to feel hurt. The Asset thought it understood most of what was happening in Bucky’s brain. Bucky’s brain was a mess of broken HYDRA programming and rusty social programming. Sometimes, the Asset felt grateful to have been taught that it wasn’t allowed to try to take care of anyone else, but only sometimes. It wasn’t <em>exactly</em> breaking those rules now, but it would do for Bucky what it wished for itself.</p><p>“Okay,” Bucky said and sat down on the floor cross legged with the Captain America pillow hugged into his chest.</p><p>“Is there anywhere I should avoid touching?“ it asked. They really needed to establish a better way of telling what was safe to touch.</p><p>“I don’t think so,“ he said. “Not like you need to go too low.”</p><p>“What’s too low?”</p><p>Bucky considered for a moment. “Below my ribs,” he decided. “For now.”</p><p>The Asset got as far as putting one knee on the carpet before it remembered why it avoided that position and grabbed a pair of couch cushions to sit on instead. “Nothing below your ribs,” it confirmed. “I can start between your shoulder blades with the ends of your hair and work up?”</p><p>“Okay.” Bucky shifted as the Asset sat behind him. “Uh. Maybe don’t put your hand on the top of my head. Just the brush.” He swallowed thickly.</p><p>Surprised, the Asset kept its first reaction to itself. <em>They trusted you to use your mouth on them?</em> Nothing good would come of saying that. It didn’t even know for sure that that was the reason.</p><p>“Brush only,” it confirmed.</p><p>It waited a few more seconds for Bucky to respond or settle into the most comfortable position.</p><p>“Ready?” it asked.</p><p>“Yes,” said Bucky. “Go ahead.”</p><p>For the most part, Bucky’s hair was in adequate condition. He was a little disheveled, which was understandable, but there was a healthy sheen to most of his hair which spoke of an effort to use good products on it as often as he was able.</p><p>The tips were a mess of broken and split ends. As the Asset pressed the brush through the last inch, some of the damaged hair broke off and either clung to the thin fabric of Bucky’s shirt or fell to the carpet between them. Bucky’s hair hadn’t been cut or trimmed since at least before his final mission, if not long before that. The Asset could understand why, but it was sad for him. Maybe the Asset could help him with that eventually.</p><p>“Can I gather your hair together?” it asked.</p><p>After a long pause, Bucky said, “Try not to pull on it?”</p><p>“Okay,” it said.</p><p>When it slid an organic finger around his ear to free the hair tucked behind it, Bucky twitched in the direction of its hand with a quick inhale. The Asset stilled and let him press his jaw joint against the Asset’s fingers. There was a lot of tension there. The Asset wanted to rub and smooth it away, but they hadn’t discussed that, and Bucky wasn’t asking yet.</p><p>A dozen seconds later, Bucky moved his face away again with a soft exhale, and the Asset completed its original task.</p><p>By the time the brush pulled smoothly through Bucky’s hair, Bucky had slumped first forward into the pillow and then sideways to lean into the Asset’s legs. His breathing was nearly as slow as it was in sleep.</p><p>“You can lie on the pillow over my legs,” murmured the Asset. It wasn’t sure Bucky would be willing to try such a position, but it wanted to offer. “I can keep brushing you like that, if you want.”</p><p>Bucky made a plaintive noise without moving his face, then twisted so the pillow was between them and let himself fall over without ever opening his eyes.</p><p>The Asset snorted in amused fondness. It knew exactly what that felt like. Bucky should stay there as long as possible.</p><p>Eventually, Bucky’s hair was in danger of starting to crackle with static, which wouldn’t be a good experience for either of them, and the Asset had to put the brush down. Hunger had started to gnaw at the Asset’s attention, but eating wasn’t a priority. The Asset would have continued for hours if it could. Preparations would be needed for next time.</p><p>There <em>would</em> be a next time.</p><p>Was Bucky actually asleep now? It didn’t <em>think</em> so, but it wasn’t at all certain, and when the Asset remembered the drowsy dreamy lethargy it had experienced, the question was almost irrelevant. It would take Bucky time to consciously and intentionally respond to anything with his defences down like this. It was good.</p><p>Its right hand twitched with the urge to touch Bucky’s back or hair. It had said it would use the brush only. Bucky was trusting it.</p><p>The pillow was between them. This proximity wasn’t <em>enough</em>.</p><p>But Bucky was relaxed and trusting in its care and it was responsible for making that happen for as long as it could sustain. There was also satisfaction and comfort for the Asset in recognizing this. No one trusted the Asset like this. Even when the Bucky Barnes it remembered had been trusted, pride would have stopped something like this from ever happening.</p><p>Adult people who had always been people probably couldn’t appreciate this experience. The Asset couldn’t say that it wouldn’t undo most of its long existence if it could, but it had learned to find parts of itself that were good and useful. This new good useful thing was, evidently, within its capacity. It could bring Bucky pleasure and accept pleasure from him. The Asset wasn’t good, but it could make sure the few actions it <em>chose</em> were good.</p><p>The Asset’s stomach growled.</p><p>The slow steady rhythm of Bucky’s breathing faltered.</p><p>
  <em>Goddamn it.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Mentions of non consensual experimentation, prison, past sexual abuse, and other unpleasantness previously alluded to. Also eating dry breakfast cereal for dinner.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Even swaying slightly with his eyes half-lidded, Bucky was remarkably insistent about their need to consume calories. The Asset <em>was </em>hungry. It was disappointed its hunger had been loud enough to rouse Bucky, but it was willing to get up and eat. There had been a time it could somewhat remember when it had only eaten according to a schedule. Putting off eating usually meant it didn’t eat until the next scheduled meal.</p><p>More than a year had passed in custody before it had earned the privilege of being able to keep snacks in its cell. It had taken months after that to try more than hoarding the occasional packet of crackers or nuts.</p><p>Bucky made good points about the necessity of being in good physical condition to meet Steve. The Asset wasn’t arguing. It suspected Bucky was making his arguments aloud to convince himself more than anything.</p><p>“We should let Steve find us like that,” Bucky said once he was three bowls of Kellog’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran Cereal into whatever meal they were having. They weren’t eating it with milk. Between them were smaller bowls for dipping the pieces of cereal in peanut butter, chocolate syrup, strawberry jam, or cream cheese.</p><p>The Asset wholeheartedly approved. It was on its fifth bowl of Cracklin’ Oat Bran. Why had no one introduced it to this cereal before? This was like eating what granola should be.</p><p>
  <em>Wait. What did Bucky just say? </em>
</p><p>“Like what?” it asked warily.</p><p>“Cuddling. Comfortable. Safe? Harmless.”</p><p>“<em>Benign,</em>” it murmured.</p><p>They both winced.</p><p>“Fuck,” said Bucky, visibly more alert now. “How the hell do we explain <em>that</em> to him?”</p><p>The Asset crunched a satisfying mouthful of dry cereal as it thought. <em>It </em>had never had to explain the words to anyone. Its keepers had obtained the relevant information from Zemo and its Captain.</p><p>Well, it knew one thing. They certainly shouldn’t introduce these Avengers to the idea the same way as in its own timeline. “Preferably <em>not</em> by triggering either of us into attacking Tony Stark,” it said.</p><p>Bucky stared at it for a moment before his expression crumpled. “Why is everything you say <em>terrible</em>?” He shook his head with a sigh and said, “Sorry. That’s not fair to you.”</p><p>“No,“ The Asset admitted. “I should explain.” It looked down at the edge of the table. “I don’t want to. You’ll be upset.”</p><p>When it raised its eyes again, Bucky looked resigned and maybe a little sick.</p><p>“That bad, huh?”</p><p>“Better than with HYDRA,” it tried to reassure him.</p><p>Grimacing, Bucky said, “That’s a low bar.”</p><p>He wasn’t wrong.</p><p>The Asset said nothing.</p><p>Finally, Bucky asked, “Did… did the army pick up where HYDRA left off?”</p><p>“Not… quite.”</p><p>Bucky kept looking at it. The Asset did not want to explain. Bucky might actually believe in things like freedom or even patriotism.</p><p>The Asset was used to doing things it didn’t want to. It pushed the remaining cereal to the side and folded its hands before fixing its gaze on one of the crumbs left behind. Bucky needed this information in order to make a plan for how to approach this Steve and his Avengers.</p><p>“The day Project Insight launched, my Captain and I were assigned to defend two of the helicarriers,” it began. “There was an explosion on my Captain’s assigned helicarrier. It was going to crash with him on it. I…”</p><p>“You abandoned your mission to save him?” Bucky guessed quietly.</p><p>A quick glance showed that Bucky looked understandably sick and pale. It looked down again.</p><p>“I stood aside and let Captain America complete <em>his </em>mission on the condition that he tried to save my Captain. And he did.” It swallowed. “But as soon as my Captain was conscious, we escaped custody with the intention of returning to HYDRA. I couldn’t let him go alone.”</p><p>“And months later, you were… you said before…” Bucky said.</p><p>“Yes,” it confirmed. “They thought that if they could reason with me or make me Sergeant Barnes again that they could use me to reach my Captain.”</p><p>It caught Bucky’s wince in its peripheral vision.</p><p>He said, “Guessing that didn’t go so well.”</p><p>“The Avengers told me Steve was in cryo. I understood I was there to be made useful to new keepers, not to be rescued. I was coming off HYDRA’s, and my Captain’s, best efforts to make sure I wouldn’t betray them again. I wasn’t able to cooperate. The Avengers moved on.”</p><p>Bucky made a pained noise. “How… how long?”</p><p>“They transferred me a few times that I remember. More that I don’t, I’m sure. Captain America visited a few times after that. About a year in, Tony Stark created an evil AI which destroyed Sokovia–”</p><p>“Uh,” said Bucky.</p><p>“–so I guess they sort of forgot about us. It was maybe five months later I got moved to an underwater version of the Fridge. Smelled like new paint. Felt like a submarine. They called it the Raft. I’m not sure if it’s American or United Nations-owned.” The Asset looked up warily. “I was on a media lockdown. I don’t know much more than that. I only picked up that much because General Ross likes to rant about the Avengers being out of control.”</p><p>“General Ross,” Bucky repeated in a tone of recognition instead of the memorization the Asset had expected.</p><p>“Secretary Ross,” the Asset clarified. “But he told me to use his Army rank.”</p><p>“<em>Thaddeus</em> Ross?” Bucky questioned.</p><p>It nodded. How did Bucky know the name in 2014?</p><p>“The same General Ross responsible for the Hulk and the Abomination?”</p><p>“The… what?” it frowned. “I don’t know, but he did rant about Dr. Banner too.”</p><p>Bucky rubbed at his face with his right hand. “Fuck. Thunderbolt <em>goddamn </em>Ross. Okay, what’s the rest of it? How did you end up fighting an alien army?”</p><p>Thunderbolt? Yes, that was the same person. The Asset paused for a moment, but Bucky didn’t say anything else. “I was much better behaved as an underwater supermax inmate than I had been as a psychiatric patient, so General Ross… recruited me... for a UN taskforce as part of a work release agreement.”</p><p>“Terms?”</p><p>“The transfer of my Captain to the Raft with the same offer. Seeing him once a month or on missions. After Vienna, my Captain’s terms included no more experimentation on us. The Raft between missions, except when Ross was showing us off for political reasons.”</p><p>“Shit, Asset,” said Bucky.</p><p>The Asset flinched. Of course Bucky would judge it for that. “I know, Bucky. He couldn’t be hurt in cryo. It was selfish of me to ask. And then he <em>did </em>get hurt in Vienna and I still don’t know if–”</p><p>Bucky put his right arm across the table, palm upright, and narrowly avoided putting his elbow in the peanut butter. “Were they experimenting on you <em>before</em> that?”</p><p>“It was only testing and the occasional blood sample or biopsy,” it muttered, looking away. It wanted to take Bucky’s hand, but it didn’t deserve the comfort. “No exploratory surgery and they never mentioned semen collection. Steve said... Well, you know how he is. Nothing’s unendurable. That and he thinks he’s the next Arnim Zola. He’s convinced he’s going to convert his captors and bring HYDRA back into power. So it was worth it to have access to people who weren’t guards or General Ross.” It paused. “Until it wasn’t, once our keepers knew the words existed.”</p><p>“You should talk to Dr. Banner,” said Bucky, jaw tight.</p><p>It wouldn’t mind that, actually. Other than Captain America, Dr. Banner had been the only one to try to talk to it, after the second time it had tried to escape to rescue Steve from the US Army.</p><p>“Okay,” it said, agreeing. If it was allowed to stay and have visitors, Dr. Banner could be one of them.</p><p>Bucky blinked at it and rocked back on his heels a little. “That’s it?”</p><p>It nodded. Dr. Banner hadn’t come to see it after the move to the Raft, but that was just smart on his part. It was likely that Ross wanted all three semi-successful serum subjects under his control. Bucky’s world was different, but not that different.</p><p>“What happened in Vienna?” Bucky asked.</p><p>***</p><p>How did it keep getting worse? Bucky didn’t want to understand. He didn’t want to know what HYDRA and brainwashed Steve’s <em>best efforts</em> had been. The Avengers had given up on the Asset. Steve had been in cryo until Dr. Banner’s tormentor had decided the Asset was stable enough to leverage against Captain HYDRA. The other timeline’s versions of Bucky and Steve had been imprisoned and experimented on by people who should have been helping them the way they had here.</p><p>Steve, Bucky’s Steve, would help the Asset. Dr. Banner would help the Asset. Bucky didn’t know how, but he would make sure the Asset got help. Forever, or five months, and it couldn’t go back to that. It wasn’t even letting itself recognise how fucked up its life was.</p><p>That, or Bucky didn’t deserve the care he’d been shown, and he couldn’t let himself think that way right now or he’d still be spiraling when Steve arrived, probably get the Asset blamed for it, and ruin everything.</p><p>The Asset was talking again, explaining the Sokovia Accords and Vienna and an angry Sokovian baron with a grudge against Tony Stark and the Avengers who had turned Captain HYDRA and the Winter Soldier back into obedient weapons for a nightmarish few hours. Literally nightmarish, once Avenger Wanda Maximoff had used her own mind control abilities to stop them from killing the other Avengers.</p><p>“The funny thing is, they’d put Maximoff in the cell across from mine for a week or so before the signing,” said the Asset. “No one told me why. I didn’t even know she was an Avenger. She terrified me, even in a control collar and restraints, but I didn’t remember she’d been another HYDRA project until she used her powers on us. I guess it was good that she’d been released, but she was still an Avenger, not like me and Steve. Then it was back to normal for us in the Raft until the aliens came.”</p><p>Maximoff. HYDRA project. Nightmare powers. That felt like it <em>should</em> be familiar, but Bucky didn’t remember. </p><p>There was the other question he’d been sitting on too. “What’s Captain America’s name?”</p><p>The Asset’s eyebrows furrowed, deepening the groove between them. “Oh, I never said? Samuel Wilson is Captain America.”</p><p>Sam Wilson? Really? No, Bucky could imagine that, actually. He was mostly surprised to hear a name he knew. </p><p>“He gave up his wings for the shield?” he asked. </p><p>“Captain America flies.”</p><p>More than a little overwhelmed, Bucky put his cool metal hand over his eyes and wiggled his right hand at the Asset until it finally took it in its own. “I still don’t know what we’re gonna say to Steve,” he said. “But I don’t think anything you’ve said would make him want to help you less than he wants to help me. So maybe it doesn’t matter.”</p><p>Its pulse was a little fast. He lowered his left hand and looked at its face, which was the sort of blank Bucky knew meant it was feeling a <em>lot</em>. “I still wanna brush your hair again,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a better way to make introductions less… tense.”</p><p>Across from him, the Asset closed its eyes and let its exhaustion, fear, and hope, show on its face and in its body language. “Okay. You know your Steve. I trust you. We’ll do it your way.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had half the chapter with Steve written, then deleted it because I decided against making Steve a POV character. Sorry!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey,” said a voice. “Hey, hey, Asset. It’s a dream. You’re not there.”</p><p>The Asset fought to control its quick and shallow breathing, but it didn’t dare to open its eyes. It tried to stop listening. No one ever talked to it like that. The words were a trick or some sort of mind game and the Asset knew better than to respond. Its Captain had said no more experimentation. (It didn’t want to think about its Captain. For some reason, thinking of him hurt even more than usual.) No one should get close enough to mess with it like this, but every so often, some new guard would get the idea that compliant meant easily exploitable or that putting it in its place would make their reputation. Just looking at someone like that could get it reported for being difficult, and this voice sounded familiar, which was usually a bad sign.</p><p>But… it hadn’t been called Barnes even once yet.</p><p><em>I’m not Bucky</em>, the Asset thought, and suppressed a frown of confusion. <em>He knows that. That’s why. </em></p><p><em>Who?</em> The Asset tuned back in and let the strange familiarity bounce around its brain making connections.</p><p>“C’mon, pal,” said the familiar voice. “You’re all sweaty, I gotta piss, and I’m a little concerned about how you’ll react if I move right now.”</p><p>“Bucky?” the Asset breathed, wary. Only another supersoldier could have understood it at the volume it had used. If Bucky was real, that wouldn’t be a problem. It felt like this was worth the risk.</p><p>“Oh, thank fuck,” said Bucky, and he <em>was</em> Bucky. “Awake?”</p><p>It couldn’t answer. It wasn’t sure yet, but it thought it was now.</p><p>“Time?” it asked on an exhale.</p><p>“It’s the middle of the night,” Bucky said at a much more normal volume. “Your sleep schedule must be all fucked up.”</p><p>Bucky was right. It had slept for too much of the day yesterday, and before that it had been in too many timezones in too short a time. The Raft. The briefing on the way to Wakanda. The aliens. Calling out for…</p><p>It shied away from the memory.</p><p>The sorcerors. Bucky.</p><p>Bucky’s Steve was coming.</p><p>The Asset opened its eyes. “I don’t think I’ll sleep more tonight,” it whispered.</p><p>“Understandable,” said Bucky. “Uh, you mind letting go of me?”</p><p>***</p><p><em>The Asset needs its own body pillow</em>, Bucky mused as he extracted himself from the bed. The Asset had blinked at its hands and arms almost like it had never seen them before. This was, unfortunately, a comparison Bucky actually had the memory to make, so he had to admit it wasn’t exactly accurate. There hadn’t been enough horror for that.</p><p>Bucky did what he needed to in the bathroom and splashed water on his face before turning to the door and hesitating over what to do now. Should he give Steve a heads-up? Maybe ask him to leave the shield outside? He wasn’t sure if he <em>could</em> make himself ask for something like that, especially since he would have to do so through JARVIS. Maybe if he wrote it down and tried not to think about what he was doing as he read it off the paper?</p><p>Bucky was tired, but sleep didn’t call to him anymore. A night without sleep wouldn’t damage them, even if it sure wouldn’t be great for their general sense of well-being. Maybe it would earn them sympathy from Steve or the other Avengers. Bucky <em>needed</em> today to go well between the Asset and Steve.</p><p>He opened the door and made glancing eye contact with the Asset before it dropped its gaze to the sheets.</p><p>“I think,” Bucky began, swallowed, then began again. “I think we should give Steve some sort of head’s up. So he doesn’t…”</p><p>“React badly?” finished the Asset in a bleak tone.</p><p>Bucky’s left arm whirred as he unclenched his fist. “I don’t think he’ll react badly.” He <em>hoped.</em> Steve <em>would</em> help the Asset, no matter what, but his initial response might involve shouting and sudden movements. Bucky had the sense that Steve touching the Asset would be several bridges too far. “But he might be... startled?”</p><p>The Asset’s breath was starting to pick up again. “Okay,” it said. It rolled over to face the wall. “Whatever you think is best. You know your Steve.”</p><p><em>And you know Captain HYDRA</em>, Bucky didn’t say, but he thought it very loudly.</p><p>Shit. Now he had to figure out what and how to do this.</p><p>***</p><p>By the time morning came, The Asset had managed enough sleep to have another nightmare, and Bucky had verbally stumbled though dictating his requests through JARVIS. His <em>I need</em> statements were getting a workout.</p><p>***</p><p>“You’re still wound tighter than a bowstring,” said the Asset, flexing its hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky had spent the time to wash his hair. The Asset, even more desperate for distraction than he was, had immediately volunteered to brush and eventually braid it. Bucky wasn’t sure he knew how to braid. They were lucky Bucky even had hairties. Most of the time, he didn’t have the energy to brush it thoroughly.</p><p>Bucky huffed. “You’re one to talk.”</p><p>“Got any issues with massage?” the Asset asked, ignoring that.</p><p>“Not that I know about,” said Bucky. “Other than the whole touch problem. You offering?”</p><p>“Obviously,” it said. “I… want to be useful, and I don’t think I’d be able to relax.”</p><p>“You think I can?” Bucky retorted. He thought about it. “Fine.”</p><p>“Good. Where can I touch you for this?” it asked.</p><p><em>Anywhere</em>, Bucky almost said, but it wasn’t true. “Back, shoulders, neck, scalp, right arm and hand,” he told it.</p><p>“No pressure on the top of your head, no pulling, nothing below your ribs,” the Asset stated.</p><p>Nervous, but not wanting to show it more than he had to, Bucky nodded confirmation. “Should I, uh, lie down?”</p><p>“No,” it said. “Unless you think that would be better for you, I’ll try what I can from here.”</p><p>“Okay,” said Bucky. His mouth was going dry with nerves.</p><p>Then the Asset squeezed the meat of his right shoulder. It was almost painful. Was this really supposed to help anyone relax? He didn’t feel… whatever he’d felt during the hairbrushing. This actually hurt more as the Asset continued.</p><p>That said, it wasn’t a <em>bad</em> hurt. The deep radiating soreness absorbed Bucky’s attention, but it was inexplicably <em>satisfying. </em>Bucky nearly groaned as the Asset’s fingers followed the tendons in his neck, stroked behind his ears, and fanned over his upper back to press all the right spots. The Asset, of course, knew Bucky’s body the way no one else possibly could. Its thumb dug into a knot of tension under Bucky’s right shoulderblade, and this time Bucky <em>did </em>make a sound.</p><p>The hands lifted away immediately. Which was. Why? Bucky could be quiet. He <em>could</em>. How had he screwed this up so soon?</p><p>“Do you want me to stop?” the Asset threatened, and that didn’t make any <em>sense</em>. Why would the Asset <em>do </em>that? And why would it threaten to stop after already <em>stopping?</em></p><p>“Bucky?” it prompted again.</p><p>Bucky blinked twice, the wall ahead of them unprocessed by his malfunctioning brain, then inhaled sharply before shaking his head to both clear his head and signal the answer he was having trouble speaking aloud.</p><p>He should probably let it know he couldn’t talk. He raised his right hand to signal a pause. The Asset hadn’t touched him again yet. He worked his jaw uselessly.</p><p>Fortunately, the Asset made a too-educated guess. “You can’t talk,” it said. “I guess. Does it help if I say you can talk?”</p><p>He gasped like he was coming up from underwater. “Ever feel like your body is a minefield?” he choked out. Apparently, that did help, and he calmed considerably as soon as he heard his own voice.</p><p>“Was this a mistake?” the Asset asked. “Too much too soon?”</p><p>“I didn’t want you to stop,” said Bucky. “But I got stuck thinking I couldn’t make a sound so I…” He turned to look at it and found it looked as frustrated and troubled as he felt. “I panicked a little.”</p><p>It simply nodded, but there was calculation in its expression. “We could try again,” it suggested. “You can talk and I can touch. You could… tell me a story?”</p><p>Bucky could probably do that. It would be easier to keep talking than to start. “Uh, yeah. Let me tell you about…” He wracked his brain for anything he’d be comfortable talking about for a while. “Let me tell you all about the Avengers’ weird food habits. Did you know Thor’s more obsessed with Pop-Tarts than Hawkeye is with pizza?”</p><p>The Asset’s face scrunched up in confusion. “The hell is a Pop-Tart?” it asked.</p><p>Bucky faced front again. “A breakfast thing, allegedly,” he said. “Not that I’d know that from how Thor eats them. You can start again now,” he added with determination. He took a breath. “The thing about Pop-Tarts is they’re supposed to be a kind of shelf-stable pastry…”</p><p> </p>
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